Outbounds 2009-2010

Adriana’s Bio

Ni hao! Hello! My name is Adriana and I am a junior currently attending St. Petersburg Collegiate High School. I live with my mother, father, younger brother, grandmother, and two pet bunnies in Palm Harbor. I am interested in Asian cultures and languages (especially Chinese and Japanese), and I’m planning on majoring in Asian Studies in the future.

My most significant hobby is traveling, staying with local families, and seeing their countries through their eyes…definitely not as a tourist. I also enjoy hosting people from other countries and showing them around ours. I became involved with Clearwater-Nagano Sister Cities Organization in the eighth grade when I went with a group of students and chaperones affiliated with this club on a two week trip to Japan. I’ve also traveled to Ireland, Mexico, and Costa Rica (where my father is from). My family and I have hosted two junior high school students and two English teachers from Japan through the same Sister Cities Program.

Some of my other hobbies include language study, drawing, playing soccer, reading, and listening to music. I played soccer last year for my city’s local team. I also like drawing realistic portraits and manga (a Japanese style of cartoons). I enjoy reading too, and my favorite books are Kafka on the Shore by Yukio Mishima, The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell, Confessions of a Mask by Mishima, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I love music from all over the world, but my favorite groups are Arashi (Japanese), Fahrenheit (Taiwanese), and Dong Bang Shin Gi (Korean).

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Rotary for the amazing opportunity that they are presenting me: not only am I advancing towards my college major and future, but I am lucky enough to have been granted a country that dovetails perfectly, Taiwan. I know this experience of living outside of my own safe haven for an entire academic year will provide me invaluable new self-knowledge, life skills, and cultural awareness, as well as my fourth language, Chinese.

Thrilling doesn’t even begin to cover it!

 Journals: Adriana – Taiwan 2009-2010

August 27 Journal

After 25+ hours of flights and layovers, and a delayed flight that had my next flight being held up for me, I finally arrived safely in Kaohsiung … and the greeting I received at the airport could not have made me feel more comfortable. I felt as if I had just gotten home from that long trip, instead of arriving in a completely foreign country. One Rotary officer even spoke a little to me in Spanish! I was so surprised and happy that she did that.

The first thing I noticed after leaving the airport that night was that my trips abroad (especially the trips to Japan) really helped prepare me for this trip. I haven’t yet experienced any culture shock. Also, had I not gone to Japan, I think I would be fairly uncomfortable here, in the rural township of Daliao, as every single person that I walk by stares with astonishment at the only foreigner this town has probably ever seen…me. Many people back home told me that I was lucky; they said that my dark hair and eyes would help me blend in with the people of Taiwan, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, I really don’t think these traits make much of a difference, because my appearance is still very different from theirs.

However, my family here in Taiwan is very similar to my family back home, in so many ways. I felt like they were really related to me the moment we met. Here are some of the similarities:

1. My host family, just like my real family, is very caring with each other; Xiao Yi (my 7 year old host brother) always holds my hand when we’re walking somewhere, and Jin Wen (my 16 year old host sister) links arms with me. The parents also hold the children’s hands a lot too.
2. Jin Wen and Xiao Yi really show their love for each other and get along, just like my real brother and I.
3. Xiao Yi is exactly like my real brother, but younger and a little more hyper. He’s hilarious! He is constantly talking, which is really helping my listening and comprehension skills.
4. My host family is multilingual; everyone speaks Taiwanese and Chinese. Ba (which means Dad in Chinese) also speaks Japanese, while Ma also speaks an indigenous Taiwanese language. My family back home can all speak Spanish and English, my parents also speak French, and my dad can speak Portuguese as well.

The weather here is also very similar to the weather back home; it’s in the 90s here, but according to the weather channel, it feels like it’s 105 degrees.

Although my families and the weather may be similar, the food here really is different. However, there hasn’t been one thing I haven’t liked. The first day I arrived, I ate what I think was jellyfish, but I’m still not sure. It was delicious! The second day here, I went to a night market, which has many small street stalls that sell 小吃 (xiao chi) which are small snacks. I ate goat sausage, tiny conchs (which were definitely my favorite food so far!), spicy grilled squid on a stick, tiny octopi, fresh and fried oysters, snails, a soup with seaweed and tiny fish, and for dessert, chunks of the best mango I’ve ever had on top of shaved ice. And yesterday, I went to a BBQ party with my host sister and her friends, and ate chicken hearts (among other things like shrimp and beef)!! I tried one chicken heart, wondering if I’d like it or not, and I liked it so much that I ate 5 more…haha. Ironically, the most distasteful thing I’ve eaten here was a greasy, grisly fried chicken leg my host sister got for me from McDonalds, along with soggy french fries.

I can’t wait to start school! My family took me a few days ago to see the route along which I’d be going to school. I’m going to ride on bike about 15 minutes to get to the MRT (mass rapid transit) station, then get on and ride the MRT until the ninth stop, after getting off, I’ll walk another ~5 minutes to arrive at my school, 高雄高商 (Gao Xiong Gao Shang). My school is huge…I can’t believe how big it is; it’s about 9 stories tall! I visited it again yesterday and met my principal and the other exchange student, who is from Finland. Everyone was so kind.

Also, one of these past days, I think I came close to experiencing what it feels like to be one of the locals here in Daliao. It’s probably as close to feeling like a local as it’ll ever get, since I’m probably always going to be stared at. That day, I went with my host sister, Jin Wen, to play basketball with her friends. We got on our bikes and rode down the narrow, winding road that leads to Daliao’s Junior High School and the basketball courts. On the way there, as usual, cars and scooters barely, yet expertly, missed us as they drove by us. As usual, the warm, muggy air had my hair sticking to the back of my neck. As usual, Jin Wen and I yelled 你好 (hello) to Zen Ma, the best cold tea seller in Daliao, and we passed her on our bicycles. Then, when we arrived at the basketball courts, Jin Wen and I played a little as we waited for all of our friends to show up. Once they arrived, we all played together for a while, and then Jin Wen and I sat down and let the guys play amongst themselves. Then, she and I walked back down to Zen Ma’s little street shop to buy 20 cent, ice-cold, large cups of green tea.

That night, after returning home and showering, my host mother, Jin Wen, and I went out onto the street so I could meet the neighbors. Here, on Lane 100, Daliao Township, the neighbors all congregate around a single, sturdy wooden table. They sit on small wooden chairs, drink tea and eat sesame seeds, and play some Taiwanese board game which I still haven’t come close to figuring out. They also speak by mixing Taiwanese (the local dialect) and standard Chinese, which can be slightly confusing at times. Although they were all meeting me for the first time that night, they all accepted me with open arms. In fact, I have never felt more at home, so far from home. I was sitting with them around the wooden table, drinking tea and sweating, speaking Chinese and listening to them speak Taiwanese, laughing at their jokes and even telling one or two, and swatting flies and petting the dog that hangs around there. These people have shown to me that the Taiwanese people are indeed the most open and kind hearted people I’ve ever met. There is absolutely nothing I’d trade for this experience here in Daliao, with these amazing, admirable people.

And before I finish, I’d like to thank my Chinese tutor and friend, Yen Fen Wu. Had it not been for her, I would be completely lost these days, not being able to understand the language and perhaps culture of this wonderful country, Taiwan.

燕芬, 真的謝謝妳!!

Furthermore, I’d like to thank Rotary for giving me this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Until next time (I’ll have pictures next time, I promise),

安娜 (Anna)

September 28 Journal

Staring out the window of my bus on my way to school one of these past days, I realized that I am completely at home here in Taiwan. I could read many of the signs I passed. It didn’t faze me that the bus came close to hitting a number of people on bikes, walking, and on scooters. The sight of an outside market, with live seafood, slabs of mysterious meats, stray dogs, and elderly women butchering chickens was an everyday sight. The hundreds of school kids crossing the street in matching uniforms was normal. For the most part, the Chinese conversations of the students and children around me flowed through my ears almost as if it were English, and the Taiwanese conversations between the elderly sounded nicely familiar. When I ate lunch at school that day, I happily devoured the pig blood with rice, stir fried ‘mater convolvulus’ (a vegetable that apparently has no common English name … this is what came up when I translated it from Chinese), fried fish cake, and sausage. Actually, all the food here, which was so different to me at first, has become my comfort food.

This past month, I’ve eaten duck’s tongue and throat, pig blood with rice (which was named the world’s strangest food … it’s not strange to me at all now), duck blood blocks, pig and chicken feet, and an entire goat meal, which included stir-fried goat, boiled goat, goat stomach and goat soup (my favorite!). I was also fortunate enough to eat the famous Taiwanese oyster omelet and Taiwanese stinky tofu. I must admit, though, that stinky tofu is the one food I have not yet liked here. I tried it on three different occasions and each time it tasted worse … haha. There are probably other strange foods I’ve eaten that I’ve forgotten to write down because it all seems so normal now.

I’ve done many things this past month, including starting school. I started on September 1st and I am in Class 1-11. The 1 means I’m in first year (equivalent to sophomore year) and the 11 just means I’m in the eleventh first year class. I love my class!!! All my classmates (45 of them) are very caring, friendly, and always positive. There’s never a day when they seem down. My first days of school, however, were crazy! The second day I attended school I had to give a self-introduction in front of the whole school (2,000+ students…) and of course, I missed my bus and had to take the MRT to school, so I was almost late … and of course I tripped while walking up to the stage to give my introduction. But all was well in the end, and no one cared about my tripping, or that I was nervous so my speaking wasn’t that great.

Also, there are many differences between my school here and my high school in the U.S.:

There are only blackboards in the classes.

The teachers, who change classes instead of us, use microphones to lecture with.

Of course, we all have uniforms. There are three different uniforms that we wear on certain days. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we have to wear the “exercise uniform,” which is a white shirt with blue pants and any sneakers of our choice. On Tuesday, we have to wear a more formal, white collared shirt with dark navy blue dress pants, and “pixie,” which are just formal, black shoes. And on Thursday, we have to wear the same formal, white collared shirt with a skirt (our school’s skirt is pink, white and blue plaid), socks, which have to be at least above our ankles, and our black “pixie.”

As in many countries, we, not janitors, clean the school. Each student must do one of the following: sweep, mop, take out the trash, clean the windows, clean the blackboard, sweep outside, or wipe the desks (which is my job).

Hardly anyone asks questions during class.

Along with the uniform, students aren’t supposed to dye their hair, wear jewelry, or wear makeup…

The students don’t form cliques as much as the students in the U.S., and everyone in the class gets along with each other.

School lasts from 7:30 in the morning to 4:10 on two days a week, and until 5:10 three days a week.

During the school week, I have three days in which I have Chinese lessons. On Monday and Tuesday morning, I have about 30 minutes to an hour of one-on-one Chinese conversation with a teacher at the school, and on Wednesday I have one-on-one tutoring with another teacher. Because of this, I feel that my Chinese is really improving. In fact, about 60~70% of the time, I can understand what is being said, or at least the main idea of people’s conversations. Though, my speaking is not yet as good as my comprehension, of course. But I really feel that the time I spent back in Florida studying Chinese really helped me so much. If I hadn’t studied Chinese back then, I feel like I’d probably only be comprehending about 20~30% of what is being said most of the time.

Apart from school, I attended a Rotary meeting in the beginning of September, and a Rotary get-together/dinner in the middle of the month. At the Rotary meeting, I did a self introduction with a PowerPoint and met many Rotarians. Everyone was so kind and happy to meet me! And last week my Rotary Counselor (Teacher Hong) took my host sister, another Rotarian’s daughter, and me to Kaohsiung’s history museum. We had so much fun! I went there to prepare for a Chinese presentation that I will do in December, introducing the city of Kaohsiung.

The last thing I want to talk about in this journal is the diligence of Taiwanese doctors (especially when they’re also Rotarians), schools, Rotarians, and the Taiwanese people in general. Earlier in the month, I got H1N1, aka the swine flu. I came home from school one day feeling like I was extremely lacking energy, so I went immediately to take a nap. When I woke up, Ma and Ba noticed that my face was pink, so they took my temperature and learned that I had a 104 degree fever. They then took me to one of the only American-trained doctors in the area. Not only was he also a Rotarian, but he also spoke Spanish! I was so surprised (I’ve actually met about three or four people here who can speak Spanish)! Anyway, after a test at the doctor’s, they found that I did indeed have H1N1. Unfortunately, because I got H1N1, I couldn’t go to school for about 4 days and I couldn’t go to the District 3510 inbound orientation. However, I was able to go back home that night, but the next morning I woke up with another 104 degree fever, so I had to be taken back to the doctor’s. Thankfully, all is well now and I feel better than ever here in cozy, home-y Taiwan.

Thank you again to the Rotary Clubs who are supporting me: Rotary Club of Kaohsiung North and the Rotary Club of Clearwater East; thanks to my family and friends for their support and love, and for understanding that I’m not at all homesick :p and thanks to my wonderful Taiwanese host family and my amazing new friends here in Taiwan.

Until next month,

安娜

October 29 Journal

It’s time again for my monthly update! This month was filled with a special holiday, a trip to northern Taiwan, a trip to southern Taiwan, new cultural experiences, much time spent with friends and family, and very many ups and no downs 🙂

I’d like to start this journal with a few lists I’ve compiled regarding Taiwan.

First, some things I love about Taiwan:

My host family. I truly believe I am the luckiest exchange student in the world to be placed with this family. I have a 15 year old host sister who I can relate to and talk to about anything, a 7 year old host brother who doesn’t care if I make mistakes when I speak (and who understands me even if I do make mistakes), and two loving host parents who spend so much of their time, energy, and love on me. My whole family is always home and chatting with me, correcting my mistakes (and explaining what those mistakes are and how to fix them), teaching me how to cook and read and write, and teaching me more about myself and my life than I could have ever imagined. They inspire me everyday to work hard and study well to learn Chinese, because it is very important for my life now in Taiwan, my future, and my future career and schooling.

My classmates. Since I stay in the same class all day, everyday, my classmates already feel like another family. They are caring and friendly, and are always willing to help me if I have any questions or problems.

My Rotary club. They have many activities every month, in addition to their meetings, and they are always inviting me and including me in virtually everything they do. And all the members are very, very kind to me.

Going to school. I can honestly say that I’ve ever been so happy to wake up at 6 a.m. on weekdays to go to school as I am now!

The fact that I don’t have to wear makeup or pick out my clothes for school. I realize now how nice it is to not waste time on those things and instead study Chinese, chat with my host family and experience life.

People immediately speak to me in Chinese and don’t speak English unless I really don’t understand what they’re saying, even though no one assumes I’m Taiwanese (many people here have told me I look Middle Eastern).

Taiwanese food. To prove how much I really love eating Taiwanese food, I’m going to tell you all that I’ve already gained almost 10 pounds here. I arrived in Taiwan weighing about 103 pounds and am now 111…and it’s only been two months!

Some things that may have seemed a bit different at first, but that I’m now used to:

升旗 (Sheng Qi). This literally translates as “hoisting the flag” and is when all the students of the school have to sit outside twice a week for a 20~30 minute ceremony. Not only did it used to be extremely hot, but the humidity was almost unbearable. Sitting under the sun with sweat literally dripping down your neck, back, arms and legs was not comfortable. When I asked my friend why we couldn’t sit inside the auditorium during these times, she said that it’s because it would be too comfortable, and she said that Taiwan’s schools are still traditional in that they see their students almost as if they were soldiers. Actually, during these ceremonies, we salute, stand, sit and turn at the same time, and, of course, sing the national anthem while Taiwan’s flag is being raised. It’s a very nice ceremony, and now that the weather is starting to cool down a bit, I am loving it more and more, as well as the students’ pride and love for their country, flag, and school.

Even though we usually have an hour nap at school, the 8+ hours of being at school really got to me when I first started school; I was always super tired and had to sleep at around 8:30. Now, however, I’m going to sleep at around 10:30, like many of my classmates. Haha~

Not drinking anything until after I’m finished eating. And the drink may not be what people from the United States are used to; many times the drink at the end of a meal is hot soup. If I drink something while eating a meal now though, I get full so quickly and lose my appetite, so I prefer to drink last.

Speaking in different languages. One of my friends at school can speak decent Spanish. And when he asks me questions about Spanish in English, I don’t know whether to reply to him in English or Chinese, and sometimes I accidentally reply in Spanish!

The traffic. There are tons and tons of scooters (kind of like motorcycles but smaller and not as dangerous), bicycles, aggressive drivers (that includes bicyclers and pedestrians…haha), and cars that don’t drive in their designated lanes or put their blinkers on. Everyone starts driving at least 2 or 3 seconds before the red light turns green, some people don’t even stop at red lights, sometimes the stop lights at major intersections don’t work at all, and sometimes all the turn signals for every direction are green at the same time.

And the last list, which I guess you can consider advice learned from (culture-shocked?) experience:

Never just bring a bikini to swim in when going to the beach or pool. Bring extra clothes to wear and swim in; and if you really want to wear a bathing suit, make it pretty conservative.

Don’t bother styling your hair unless you have some kind of supernatural hair products that can withstand the 150% humidity. Once, when I straightened my hair in the morning (and used hair product to try to keep it straight), I got to school and people asked me if I curled my hair or if it was naturally that wavy…

When crossing the street, always look very, very, very carefully, even if it seems like there are no vehicles coming. I’ve never been in direct danger of being hit by a vehicle, but I’m always aware of the constant danger of Taiwanese traffic.

When someone says something you don’t understand, don’t pretend you understand; the Taiwanese will always be happy to explain it to you in more simple Chinese.

Now, I’d like to talk about the festival that took place this month. The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節) is one of a few big annual celebrations in Taiwan. It’s a time to spend with family, admire the moon, eat barbeque (pork, fish, beef, goat and other meats), mooncake and youzih (kind of like a grapefruit, but not very bitter or sour), and drink hot tea. The Mid-Autumn Festival takes place on the 15th day of the 8th lunar calendar month, which was Saturday, October 3rd this year. That day, my host family and I departed our house in Daliao a little before noon, and began our drive South, towards Pingtung County, where my both of my host parents’ parents live.

We first stopped in the rural town of 萬巒 (Wan Luan), which is my host mother’s hometown. There, we visited her mother and a sister of hers, I listened to them speak Hakka, and then my host family and I ate pig feet, and pig thigh which is that area’s famous food. After lunch, my host dad drove us to his hometown, 四重溪 (Sih Chuang Xi). His hometown is close to Kenting, which is definitely one of Taiwan’s most beautiful places. It’s near the ocean, rural, filled with fresh air, decorated with traditional houses and buildings, and surrounded by towering, lush, green mountains and a rushing river. We stayed in his hometown until Sunday, and there met with my host father’s older brother, and his brother’s wife and two children. During those two days in 四重溪, I learned to play Mahjong (a VERY popular game in Taiwan), saw the true, rural life lived by both Taiwanese and Aborigines, prayed for the deceased at a temple, made friends with my host father’s family, laughed a lot, learned new things, and ate all the typical foods that are eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Also, two weeks ago, my host mother took me with her on her company outing. It was so fun! She and many of her co-workers went on two buses (equipped with karaoke of course) on a trip to northern Taiwan. The bus ride was half the fun; I made a few good friends with some of my mother’s co-workers and learned so much from them (from some phrases in Taiwanese, to certain aspects of Taiwanese culture). On the way north, we stopped at a national park to hike up a mountain and view some waterfalls. After that, we continued our trip up to Tao Yuan, near Taipei. There, we stayed in a hotel, which also had a spa and hot spring! We stayed there one night, and the second day, we all went to see Chiang Kai Shek’s son’s coffin. It was a very interesting experience. There were two soldiers standing outside the room with the coffin who weren’t allowed to blink or even move anything at all for an hour at a time. And when we entered the room, we weren’t allowed to talk.

The park in the surrounding area was also very beautiful. After seeing the coffin, we went to another historic area and market. My friends and I bought Taiwanese 小吃 (“small-eats”), played games (similar to the ones at the Florida State Fair), won a bubble-blowing gun, and rode around on bicycles that we rented that day. We departed after a couple hours and were on our way back to southern Taiwan. On the drive down, we sang Chinese and Taiwanese songs, ate chicken feet and oranges, chatted, and joked. Finally, around 7, we arrived at Kaohsiung city, and then my host mother took some of her coworkers and I out to eat goat, which has become my favorite meat 🙂

Finally, I’d like to say that there are times here in Taiwan when I really feel like I’m Taiwanese. Like when I was sitting in my host father’s parents house, around a small table, playing Mahjong with my host sister and her cousins, listening to the adults speaking Taiwanese, and joking with them in Chinese. Or when I’m at school, chatting with my friends (in Chinese of course) about Taiwanese culture or asking them questions about some things I don’t understand. Or when I’m riding on my bike in the morning to my bus stop and people are no longer staring at me like they did two months ago. Or even when I’m at the 7-11 down the street buying milk and bread for the next day’s breakfast, while texting my Taiwanese friends. I feel like I really fit in with this culture. I can’t recall any moments here when I felt really frustrated because of the difference in cultures, languages or religion. There may be many differences, but I understand fully that they will not change, and that there is no reason they should change. Taiwan honestly feels like my second home; I feel so comfortable here. My host family feels like they’re my real family, I definitely connect more with my Taiwanese friends than the other exchange students, I feel like I’ve known my Taiwanese friends my whole life, when I hear Chinese, it sometimes just sounds like English, and life just feels completely normal. Time is already flying by and I am begging it to slow down so I can relish my life in Taiwan just a little longer.

I truly can’t thank Rotary, and the Rotary Clubs of Clearwater East and Kaohsiung North, enough. “Thank you” will never be enough to show you all how thankful I am for this experience. Nevertheless, 謝謝你們!! Thank you all!! 🙂

Until next month,

陳安娜

November 27 Journal

Another month has passed here in Taiwan, and winter is nearing. The weather is finally cooling down! …for the most part…although it sometimes gets up to 85 in the middle of the day. And life here is still a breeze, so easy to adjust to, and so easy to love. I’m honestly enjoying being here so much. Really, when there’s so much to learn, so many people to be with, so much fun to be had, a language to learn, I don’t want to waste any time sulking around. I only have 8 or 9 months left, after all.

This month I took a special trip to Ping Tung County to visit the Taiwanese Aborigine Cultural Park. When we arrived, the day was cold and rainy, and seemed just like the perfect day to try and ruin our trip. But what my family and I got to see that day made up for the weather…in fact, what I saw that day moved me to tears and made me feel a much stronger pride in my own indigenous heritage (my father is half Indigenous American).

The entrance fee to the park was free that day, because that day (November 14th) was meant to honor the recently named, fourteenth “official” aboriginal tribe of Taiwan, the Sakizaya tribe. While walking around the park that day, we realized that there were almost no people there, even workers. We looked around at the old houses of aborigines from many years ago, with cliffs and mountains as a backdrop. The mist and light rain actually made for a different sort of beauty in that landscape. Then, we took a small bus to the performance center, where we watched the tribes’ traditional dances and singing. We were able to watch an amazing performance by each of the fourteen tribes, all having their individual movements and singing. But what really moved me was the lyric-less performance by the Sakizaya tribe, telling about their history.

Long ago, Chinese people came to Taiwan from mainland China, and like Europeans did to Native Americans, the Chinese overpowered, dominated, controlled, and killed many of Taiwan’s indigenous people. The Sakizaya tribe was especially in danger because they were notably strong-minded and spirited and did not like the intrusion of the Chinese at all. Unfortunately, though, they couldn’t really fight back because their human strength was no match for the Chinese’s weaponry. Therefore, when the Chinese came to attack the Sakizaya in 1878, the remaining tribe people fled to another tribe (the Ami tribe) for safety. Since the Ami didn’t try to fight against the Chinese, the Chinese didn’t attempt to harm them, and therefore the Sakizaya were safe hiding with the Ami. The Sakizaya have been with the Ami since that time, and it was not until 2004 that the Sakizaya began fighting for their own identity again, saying that they were not the Ami people, but rather, their own tribe.

The performance we witnessed that day at the Cultural Park, was the first performance by the Sakizaya tribe, finally being able to express their own culture and tradition. After a speech by the current Sakizaya leader (in their language), speaking about the importance of this day for them because they were finally being recognized as their own tribe, the Sakizaya performers jumped for joy, laughed and cried, expressing their happiness that day. For their performance, they wore their own traditional clothes, hummed their own tunes, and danced their own dances.

All in all, that day really impacted me and educated me more about the history of the original inhabitants of Taiwan. I am so thankful we went to the park that day, and were able to watch that emotional and breathtaking event.

Now, on another note, the Chinese language. Many people back at home told me I was crazy, that Chinese was the hardest language to learn in the world, and that learning a European language would be so much easier. I must disagree…not all European languages are as easy as they may have thought. Basque, Hungarian, Russian, Icelandic; all languages that make my knees shake. Chinese, on the other hand, is not as hard as many people seem to think. The basic grammar is fairly simple. It follows the Subject-Verb-Object pattern that English does. There aren’t really any verb tenses: present, past, future, etc, a verb always stays the same. There are no verb conjugations or cases according to gender or number, and there are only a few articles. The pronunciation is fairly easy for me now, although there is one sound I used to have trouble pronouncing; the Ü, which isn’t present in English. Writing and reading also comes pretty easily for me, and anyone can learn it; it just takes time and patience (Chinese characters are really not as scary as they may seem). And learning vocabulary is just like learning vocabulary in any other language.

The only thing that hinders me on occasion is the difference in tones. The word “Ma,” pronounced with 5 different tones all mean completely different things. Sometimes the tones sound very similar. For example, if you say the word “ma” with a high tone (just slightly high pitched), it means “mother.” “Ma” with a rising tone (starting at normal pitch and then making the pitch higher), means “flax/hemp.” “Ma” with a dipping tone (starting at middle pitch, falling to a low pitch, and then rising again) means “horse.” “Ma” with a falling tone (starting high and then falling to a lower pitch) means “to scold.” Finally, “ma” with a neutral tone (just normal pitch) at the end of a sentence makes that sentence a question.

Now that I’ve probably convinced you that Chinese really is hard, let me tell you that Taiwanese has eight different tones, and Vietnamese has nine different tones, as do some northern Chinese dialects…so standard Chinese really isn’t hard when compared to some other languages. And the tones just come naturally after a while; you don’t really have to think about it while talking.

On the same note, my English is already becoming a little strange. I spoke English for the first time in a while when I talked to my parents on skype the other day…and I felt myself pausing occasionally and struggling to get words out of my mouth. I said “eat medicine” instead of “take medicine,” and when explaining something about Chinese to my mother, I used “然後,” instead of using it’s English counterpart, “and then.” Also, I have one classmate that one day spoke to me in English and I when I spoke with her, I caught myself making a few mistakes like “I also am,” and “I don’t think so, too.”

Moving on, school is still going extremely well, and I’m loving it more and more with each passing day. I feel so comfortable at school and I really am so close with my classmates. They’re all the kind of people who can comfort other classmates when they cry, laugh with them, joke with them, and make them feel good when they’re down. And that also goes for my homeroom teacher, 程老師 (Teacher Cheng). He is really special and I can see that he’s making an impact on these 15 year olds’ lives. His style is different from many teachers here. When a student falls asleep in class, he asks if he/she is feeling ok, what time he/she went to sleep the night before, if they’ve been struggling with homework, and I’ve even heard classmates say they’re so glad that the teacher can lend an ear for any problems they may be having, whether it be family, relationship, life, or friendship problems. He really cares about all of his students, and there are always past students of his stopping by to say hello.

Next month my school is having their annual school festival, honoring the anniversary of the day the school was built/established. For the festival, every class must participate in the sports day, which is similar to the field days we had in elementary school, and every class must also participate in the other activities. For the festival, my class is doing a fashion show and we are making all the clothes out of paper. My friend told me that it’s class 1-11’s tradition to make a paper fashion show.

Lastly, I’d like to say good luck to all the 2010-2011 outbound candidates!! 加油!! I hear there are many from my high school applying 🙂 I’m so glad to see so many people are going for this wonderful opportunity. This really is a once in a lifetime, life-changing experience; there’s really nothing like being able to live an experience like this at such a young age…learn a new language, learn a new lifestyle, learn new things, meet new people, eat new things (haha), see the world through other people’s eyes, gather information to make opinions, learn more about the world, learn more about yourself and about others.

Probably one of the most significant things I have learned here is that people, under the skin, really are quite similar…if not exactly the same. Sure, there are cultural and language differences, but when you look beyond that and look into a person’s heart, thoughts, sentiments, feelings and emotions, you realize that we’re not as different as we seem from the outside.

So, in conclusion this month, I’d like to say “thanks” again to everyone; to my parents for their undying love and support :), to my Taiwanese friends and family, my Taiwanese classmates and teacher, to the Rotary Clubs of Clearwater East and Kaohsiung North, and to the past exchange students who mentioned Rotary to me…thank you so much. Thank you, Rotary. 我非常愛台灣 <3 天天都很開心!!

我下個月再寫

Wo xia guh yue zai xieh

I’ll write again next month

陳安娜

December 25 Journal

I wake up at 6:30 on Sunday morning; a brisk breeze blowing in through my open window and rooster calls coming in from the small land plot on the end of our street. I walk downstairs and my mother and I eat a small breakfast together, chatting about what foods we plan on buying today at the market; fish and mussels, fresh chicken (always killed just an hour or two before being sold), green vegetables and probably some pineapple.

At around 7, we step out our front door and the soles of our shoes silently greet the old cement road, like every other day. I stretch my arms and take a deep breath, wrinkling my nose a little at the faint smell of the perpetual pollution cloud that lurks around this area of town. As my mother and I get onto our bikes, my little brother stumbles out to us, both shoes untied, rubbing at his tired eyes…he says he wants to go with us and see what we’re going to see, too. He climbs up into the seat in the front of my mother’s bike, now just a little too small for him; his legs hang precariously close to the front wheel.

The time-worn wheels of our bicycles take us down that old bumpy road, across a tiny intersection, and when we pass two small buildings on either side of the road, my viewpoint opens up to crisp, green vegetable fields on all sides, sparkling with early morning dew. I take another deep breath, this time enjoying it much more. There is the slight smell of vegetation…and nothing else; no pollution or chemicals, since the vegetables grown here have no pesticides. Here, there are only a few scattered cement buildings in the background, no cars, a handful of people, fresh air and a stray dog or two. There’s an elderly woman on the side of the road, calling out to the few passers-by, asking us if we’d buy a bundle of corn for twenty cents; a faded, slightly warped straw hat shading her aged face from the rising sun.

I feel elated as I glide on my bicycle down the road, maneuvering around the small potholes here-and-there. The warmth of the sunshine fights for my attention against the sharp whip of wind against my face; the distant barks of dogs rise up countering the buzzing sound of a motor scooter up ahead, turning and driving down another street I hadn’t been down before. As my mother and I continued on our bikes, a flower field appeared in the distance, at first just a small patch of color, and soon growing into 花海 (Hua hai), its name, which means “an ocean of flowers” in Chinese.

Fluorescent orange, vivid pink and bright white flowers wave at us, flowing from side to side in the breeze. There are unmanned food stands and kiosks, which will be emitting the delicious smells of roasted squid, grilled corn, fried fish cakes, and fresh squeezed orange juice in the afternoon, when the street will be filled with people from all over who came to see the beauty of my town, Daliao. —

This month passed by even more quickly than the last. So much is has been happening: my school had its annual school festival, I gave my first Chinese speech, I took a trip to Sun Moon Lake, and I spent a lot of time learning new things, experiencing more and more, and of course, being thankful for this experience 🙂

My school’s annual festival was like nothing we have in schools back home. If anything, it was somewhat like the field days we used to have in elementary school. It lasted two days; the first day started off very interestingly, with a show of each class’ special costumes. Our class won first place in the costume contest out of all the first years! My classmates are very skilled and I’m so thankful they were so helpful and helped me with my outfit, or I think it wouldn’t have been able to participate in the costume parade 🙂 haha~ I was dressed as a Chinese legendary character named Ba Ye, and my friend dressed up as Qi Ye, another legendary character; their story is very intriguing:

— Qi Ye and Ba Ye used to be very good friends, so good that they said they couldn’t live without the other. Every day they met at the same time to drink tea under a bridge. One day, Ba Ye was early waiting for his friend as usual, and suddenly the weather changed; it began to rain very hard, making the water of the river under the bridge rise quickly. Qi Ye was on the way to the bridge when it began to rain, so he ran all the way back home to get an umbrella for he and his friend. Meanwhile, the water of the river kept getting higher and higher, but Ba Ye didn’t dare to move, because he was afraid that Qi Ye wouldn’t be able to find him, and he didn’t dare break their appointment. Seeing as Ba Ye was extremely short, he was drowned. When Qi Ye arrived he saw that Ba Ye was drowned, he was so sad that he decided to hang himself from a tree. When the Devil saw the way the two friends kept their promises, he was moved and asked God if these two could be made into the messengers of death, and God agreed. So Qi Ye and Ba Ye are said to be the messengers of death, those who take bad souls and bring them to Hell. —

After our costume parade, the rest of the day was composed of running contests, like three legged races and relay races. The second day (Saturday), had more races (our class got third place in the girls’ relay race!!), each class sold drinks and foods, and there was a fun performance by all the school’s clubs, including the Aborigine Club, the Dance Club, the Martial Arts Club, and the GuQin Club (the GuQin is a traditional, Chinese stringed instrument).

I also was fortunate enough to have my Host club take me on a trip to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭)! It’s one of Taiwan’s most beautiful places and it was such a great experience going there. There is a group of aborigines that used to inhabit the whole lake area (the Thao tribe), but now the lake basically belongs to the Taiwanese government. However, the aborigines still live there (although there are only 600 left), and there is even a small island in the middle of the lake, said to be sacred to the Thao, and it’s forbidden for anyone but the aborigines to step on the island. The water of the lake is pristine blue-green, and it is surrounded by lush mountains. The air is fresh and the land around it still maintains a rugged beauty to it, despite the hotels here and there spotting the lake’s banks. I was so happy I was able to go there and see the beauty of Sun Moon Lake first-hand. The photos I took really do no justice to the beauty there.

Last week, I gave my first Chinese speech. When I heard it had to be 7 minutes long, I thought “Oh no, I can’t do that…” but in the end, I had to correct my speech 3 or 4 times to make it short enough~ haha. I even surprised myself by getting first place out of the fifteen exchange students in my district, 3510! But the next time we have a speech, I will prepare more, so that I can say the speech without any papers or cards in my hand. It was really fun to write my speech about all the experiences I’ve had, all that I’ve learned, and the people I’ve met. The other exchange students also had great speeches; they had everyone laughing! And it was so fascinating to hear and see the experiences, thoughts, and new knowledge of the other exchange students here in Taiwan. (If you want to see the actual speech, here’s the youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIFXpS6uIK8) 

A lot of people have been asking me what Christmas is like in Taiwan. It’s pretty different from Christmas in the U.S. For example, students still have to attend class, and workers still have to go to work. Also, there are some people that give gifts, and some that have dinner with their families, but it depends; some people feel December 25th has little or no significance whatsoever. Here in Taiwan, Christianity is a minority religion, Buddhism and Taoism being the major religions, so Christmas doesn’t have the same significance to many here that it does to many in the United States. A lot of people here still see it as a fun day to celebrate and spend time with family, or exchange a card and some chocolate, but it usually isn’t more than that. Please don’t take my description as a complaint, though! We exchange students are all around the world in different countries to learn new people’s way of living, new customs and cultures, so I see nothing saddening or melancholy in not being home for Christmas. I’m here with a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and I’m living a life I wouldn’t change for anything. Also, I know my biological family is back at home, happy and safe, so no worries 🙂

Happy holidays everyone & happy winter vacation!

安娜

January 31 Journal

I’m sitting in my new host family’s living room (which I’ll talk about soon), writing my sixth journal. The days are flying by and I feel like I’m fighting to keep time on my side…five months have already passed and I only have about six months left here on this beautiful island of Taiwan.

Seeing the new outbounds for this year, I remember this time last year when I was wondering what it would be like to live in Taiwan, only about a month after learning Taiwan was indeed my final destination…how would life change for me? Who would I meet? How would living at such a distance from my home (literally and metaphorically) change my perspectives, outlooks, and interests? How long would it be until I could speak the language? What would school be like? What if I couldn’t connect with the Taiwanese people the way I connected with people in the US, because of all the different barriers between us? There were so many questions I was dying to ask. Look at me now, though: more knowledgeable and independent, living in a new country! I feel like I’ve gotten a few years older here, in only a few months.

I was able to understand and communicate well after three months (although I don’t consider myself fluent yet, after five months). This was the biggest step for me so far here. The acquisition of the basic language really took me to a new level; I was no longer the guest, the foreigner, the person who didn’t understand what was going on, the person excluded from most conversations, the person being talked about in whispers. I no longer felt as reserved with my thoughts and opinions as I did in the beginning. It was easier to speak my mind or to lighten the mood with a joke or two. I was able to go places and do things on my own without feeling helpless as my host sister spoke for me.

Then, came more and more notions of the language. I learned bits of Taiwanese here and there, the slang came easily, I learned to understand what was joking and what was serious, and I heard people using lines from famous movies like Cape No. 7 in their conversations, and even started using some famous quotes as well. People started asking me, “How do you know how to say that?” or, “I never thought I’d hear a foreigner saying that!” Haha~

In February or March last year, I began learning Chinese with a Taiwanese friend/ex-student of my mother’s, Yen Fen Wu, and let me tell you all, I am so-so-so grateful to her for her help with learning Chinese. If I were you, 2010-2011 outbounds, I would definitely start learning the language now, just as everyone else is advising you to do. And for people coming to Taiwan, there are tons of interesting, funny, sad Taiwanese dramas which you can watch for free at www.mysoju.com, which really help with language learning! I really advise one-on-one tutoring, though. It may not be as readily available, but this is the fastest way to learn a language (for me, at least), in combination with self studying. Self studying is great to do in one’s free time. I studied from my own text and phrase books, listened to a bunch of Taiwanese music (trying to understand the lyrics) and of course, watched tons of Taiwanese dramas.

There are other things which I’ve been unconsciously adjusting to here in Taiwan, like the way I wear my clothes, the way I talk, or even the way I walk and carry myself around. And the biggest compliments I receive now are the ones from people saying, “You’re not Taiwanese? Oh, but you grew up here, right?” or when I went to another family reunion, “So you’re the Chen’s first daughter! You’re so grown up now!” or “Wow, I almost mistook you for a foreigner, you look a little like one.” They seem a little over the top, and I know not everyone thinks I’m Taiwanese, but these compliments really make me feel so happy 🙂

But still, the language is one of the most important elements of blending in. Even at the monthly Rotary meetings, and the occasional Rotary events I go to, I’ve been able to speak without preparing too much beforehand. HINT to outbounds: you should prepare at least a little something to say for every Rotary event, meeting, party or whatever it may be. I’ve learned the hard way that I always need to know what to say when I’m suddenly called on to give a “short” two minute speech in Chinese…haha~

Besides that, like I mentioned before, I’ve moved to my second host family. It was hard to move from the wonderful first family I had here, especially since I moved from that little town of Daliao to the middle of Kaohsiung city, very close to my school, and this is the first time in my life that I’ve lived in a city this big. When I look out the window of our apartment on the seventh floor and see city scape as far as the eye can see, I feel a rush of excitement~ It’s so different from every place I’ve ever lived in!

And I love my new host family, too 🙂 My host mother is so kind, caring, and understanding, and her son, Yahng-Yahng, is a little shy, but also has a warm personality, and reminds me of my own little brother. We have agreed on a special schedule: Tuesday and Saturday are English days, where we must all speak English, Thursday is Taiwanese day, and the rest of the week is for speaking Chinese.

This past week I was also chosen, along with one rebound student who went to Germany two years ago, to be interviewed on a Taiwanese radio station! What a surprise!! …and I was so nervous…but in the end, it was fine, and our interview will be aired on Taiwanese radio in the morning of February 9th.

One of the last things that has been going on this month is that every Saturday and Sunday morning, all the other exchange students and I am learning two things: 1) Kung Fu, and 2) Ba Jia Jiang dance.

Ba Jia Jiang is a very interesting part of Taiwanese and Chinese culture. From what I’ve heard from most of my Taiwanese friends, no one really knows what Ba Jia Jiang originally was and where it came from. However, most people know that the Ba Jia Jiang (which roughly translated means Eight Warriors) were evil warders who took part in a very old, traditional Chinese performance, where they wore beautifully elaborate clothing and had their faces painted in bright colors forming frightening patterns. For example, sometimes they use red paint to make the illusion that they are frowning, or use black to make their eyebrows stand out and just make their faces look very threatening. They surrounded a spirit medium, who would be mutilating himself. The Ba Jia Jiang carried fans with Chinese characters that would protect them from evil spirits, and they were not allowed to smile or joke. They would be there to ward off any evil spirits and they had a special walk/dance that was very distinctive, which the exchange students and I are learning now.

Unfortunately though, the performance is now sometimes tied with violence and gangs. Many of the performers nowadays are adolescent boys who self mutilate and inflict violence on other performers, sometimes throwing knives and other sharp objects in the air just so they will land on their own heads, or on the heads of others. They become this way during the performance in a religious fervor, thinking they’re in a state between human and god, between reality and magic.

There are so many interesting things I’m learning here in Taiwan!

So that’s about it for this month, and if anyone has any questions about coming to Taiwan (or even about exchange in general), feel free to e-mail me and I’d be happy to try to answer all of your questions as best as possible J

Until next month!

陳安娜

March 21 Journal

It really feels like I just finished writing my last journal yesterday…and I didn’t even write a journal last month, the reason being that I wanted to wait for my father to come before writing again. My father came on February 28th and stayed here in Taiwan with me until March 10th!! I was so happy to have him here and to show him around to many places around beautiful Taiwan. We were really lucky and were able to see many cultural aspects that are especially Taiwanese.

Last month had Chinese New Year! My new host mother took me to her father’s house in Pingtung City. There we met with all of her sisters and her younger brother, and all of their children. The first night, we ate a traditional Chinese New Year dinner (tons and tons of delicious Taiwanese foods), and I ate “long life vegetable,” which is a long, leafy green vegetable that one is supposed to eat without biting it into pieces, in hopes that his or her life will be long. On the second and third day of the New Year, we spent much time with the family and even went to pray for the deceased family members (my family is Buddhist). I accompanied my host mother, her three sisters, her younger brother, and some of their children to pray at a temple and cemetery. We used incense and at the end of the ceremony burned paper money (no, not real money) so that the deceased could use it. It was a very interesting experience.

Two weeks ago, all the exchange students from District 3510 (Kaohsiung, Pingtung) had a performance at the 12th annual District 3510 Rotary conference. I mentioned in my last blog that all of the exchange students were practicing a dance every Saturday and Sunday from 10-12 at Central Park here in Kaohsiung city, and all of our practice since January was for this very performance. We learned BaJiaJiang, a very traditional Taiwanese dance, as well as a few other dances that were more contemporary (Lady Gaga, etc). The practices every weekend were really fun, and actually helped me get closer to the exchange students. My first family lived in Daliao, which is very far from the actual city of Kaohsiung, where the rest of the students live, so for the first five months of my exchange I had very little contact with the rest of the students. But now that I live in the city, and also due in large part to the weekly dance practices, I got to know the exchange students a lot more. I have also been using a lot of language recently; the exchange students selected me to be the dance leader, and so I’ve had to translate everything our teacher says, into English and into Spanish for the South American exchange students. The students all understand most of what the teacher says, so little by little, I’ve noticed that I don’t need to translate as much as I had to in the beginning.

Another exciting thing is that my father came to visit me!! He arrived on Sunday, February 28th at around 10:30 p.m. The following day I took him to Xizihwan, which is near the port/coast area of Kaohsiung, and then took him by ferry to the small island in the port area. We invited a friend of mine and the three of us ate grilled squid, giant shrimp, fried scallops and drank cold, sweet tea (since the weather was similar to Florida summer weather).

My father and I were even lucky enough to stumble upon a procession of worshipers, which I realized was a performance of the real BaJiaJiang. The men in the front took large swords, metal-spiked clubs and mace-like weapons to their backs and foreheads. Their blood was wiped on “paper hell money” and then burned in piles on the ground, which the men then walked upon. The fourth man in the procession had a black piece of cloth covering his eyes, and when I asked why, I was told it was because he was supposed to have had the spirit of a god inside of him, so he was able to walk the distance to the final temple without looking at the path he was supposed to walk. The performance was very interesting and I was so happy we were able to see such a traditional Taiwanese cultural aspect. These types of performances are becoming rarer and rarer and I have some Taiwanese friends who have never seen something like this.

My father and I also went to visit my school, went to Cheng Ching Lake, Lotus Lake, Kenting, the largest Buddhist temple in Taiwan, and even the largest Taoist temple in all of south Asia. I had been to most of the places before, so it was fun to play the role of the tour guide and show my father the beauties of this place I now call home.

The time when my father was here was flawed, however, by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred in south Taiwan, near where I live. I have experienced only one other earthquake during my time in Taiwan, and that time it occurred very far away, on the east coast of Taiwan, while this one was much more serious. My father and I were visiting my first host family and we were eating breakfast when I began to hear the windows shaking. All of a sudden, my first host father shouted “Earthquake!” and as we ran downstairs and out of the house, I heard things falling behind us and glass breaking. Even when we were standing outside, and the whole situation felt a bit safer, my legs were quivering because the ground didn’t stop shaking for about another 10 seconds. The feeling was definitely unsettling; my head felt uncontrollably dizzy and I felt like I needed to sit down quickly or my legs would buckle.

The same day of the earthquake, we went to visit the giant Taoist temple, which was situated in the town next to the area where the earthquake’s epicenter was. What we saw was a bit disquieting. The first impression of the temple was a splendor like one I’ve never seen before. The size of the temple and the surrounding temples was very startling, and the vivid green grasses of the surrounding grounds gave the whole place an extremely free, peaceful, tranquil feeling. It was also very quiet and beautiful, as there were no people to be seen. However, when we walked in through the gates, I began to notice little details that proved the gravity of the earthquake. The paths on the grounds were lined by hand-carved, stone statues of Taoist gods and goddesses, but little by little I became aware that a few here and there were chipped, some broken, and some even fallen and completely crumbled on the ground. As we approached the massive main temple, I noted the central gate had huge architectural flaws resulting from the earthquake. As I observed it more closely, it looked like it could topple with any type of stress applied to it. The main temple had pieces of concrete, whole wooden busts, and brick fragments sprinkled all over the area around it.

Near the end of the time my father was here, my current host mother drove us two hours south to Kenting. This was the second time for me to go to Kenting, and it was just as fun and fresh as the first time! The ocean was beautiful and the drive there was also very scenic. My father said that many of the areas in South Taiwan remind him of Costa Rica, where he is originally from. We were able to go to two different national parks and even to the night market, where we happened upon a Peruvian man selling handmade leather jewelry. He, my father, and I all spoke in Spanish~ haha. The national parks were stunning and for the first time in a while, I saw wild monkeys!! They were so cute 🙂

Apart from the earthquake, my father’s visit was one of the highlights of this month and I felt so happy, and even proud to show my father around south Taiwan!

Also, I just learned last week that on April 9th-11th (two days before my birthday, April 13th haha) we exchange students will all be going to Penghu Islands!! These islands (previously called “Pescadores”–meaning fishermen in Spanish) are situated off the west coast of Taiwan, between Taiwan and China, and are absolutely beautiful! I’m really so happy that we have so many opportunities to travel to so many places in Taiwan 🙂

I’m looking forward to the last FOUR months of my stay here…I can’t believe there are only four months left. I’ll make sure to treasure these last four months with all I have and make the most out of it. I was at the exchange student’s weekly gathering yesterday, where we practice for another performance in May (all of Taiwan’s Rotary is going), and when we found out our friend from Ecuador is leaving next month, our Korean friend began crying. As we were trying to comfort her, the air around us seemed to change as a feeling of sorrow swept through every one of us. Time has really flown by, and even though we were warned about this from the beginning, it’s really an unsettling feeling thinking about how we will pretty soon be leaving all of these unforgettable memories behind us, though we will still always have them in our hearts and minds. We exchange students, no matter where we’re from or where we go all make similar great friendships and have so many memories and emotions that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.

Really, so, so much has happened here. And because of this year, my life, my future has changed…I have changed as a person…for the better, of course 🙂

Thankfully, I will definitely be coming back next year to Taiwan, whether it be to come back for college or just to visit, so I’ll keep my spirits up for now and enjoy my time here at home, in my beautiful Taiwan.

安娜

April 21 Journal

It’s time for my eighth journal! This time it feels like forever since I wrote my last journal … speaking of time (for the millionth time? haha), minutes, hours, days, weeks are now blurring together. I always seem to catch myself thinking, “did that happen this weekend or last?” Or maybe it’s that now that I only have three months before I go home, I’m trying not to think too much about time … I’m at a point in my exchange where I can listen to music I heard throughout my year here and cry 🙁 It’s just hitting me now just how much this year means to me, my future, and just my life in general, and how much it has changed me as a person.

I’m sorry but I have to start my journal with a complaint … I’ve noticed recently that there is something about Taiwanese schools that really bothers me. There are some teachers at the school that are called “drillmasters.” They are ex-soldiers/militants who, in addition to teaching, are at school to catch any students wearing the uniform wrong, smoking, holding hands, and/or doing other inappropriate things at school, and then to punish them. However, many of them are nothing but adult bullies in my opinion. Take our class’s drillmaster, for example. One time, at the beginning of class, a few students went to the back of the classroom to get their textbooks and the drillmaster yelled out, “I didn’t say you could go get your textbooks! Stand in the back of the room, all of you, for the rest of class.” One of the boys in the back had his hands behind his back while standing and she interrupted the class just to say to him, “What are you doing with your hands behind you? Get out!! I don’t even want to see your face!” Another time, she was calling on random people in the class to answer questions; the first few questions were about the earthquakes that have been happening recently. She asked the first student where the two most recent earthquakes happened (has nothing to do with the class, national security), and when the students didn’t know, the drillmaster said, “How can you not know? Geez! Do kids nowadays never watch the news or what?!” She often wastes class time embarrassing students and just bullying the students in general. In any case, this drillmaster is too over the top most of the time, and Taiwanese schools can definitely do without the adult bullies in school. We’re not in the army, WE’RE IN HIGH SCHOOL.

So now on to the important stuff…

The beginning of April had a holiday called Qingming Festival (a.k.a. Tomb Sweeping Festival); it’s the first day of the fourth lunar calendar month. The days before the actual festival are called cold food days and are special for making and eating spring rolls. Therefore, that day my host mother took me to the traditional market to go buy ingredients for the spring rolls with her. It was amazing to see the spring roll “skins” being made with very sticky dough; the hand of the woman making the skins was super fast and skilled, spinning the dough on the hot metal pan into a flat, pancake looking thing, and then another woman took them off the skillet only after a few seconds. We also bought sausage, lima beans, cabbage, dried tofu, pork, egg, other vegetables, and ground peanut. Then we got home and waited for two of my friends to come over and then the five of us all made spring rolls together, putting all the ingredients together in the freshly made skins, and then ate them! They were delicious 🙂

During this month, my host mother and I have made sort of a habit of going hiking in the mountains near the outskirts of Kaohsiung, Cai Mountain and Shou Mountain. We usually go very early on a Saturday or Sunday morning and then hike for at least 2 hours. The first time we went, we took my little host brother (11 y/o) and we sort of got lost … well, we went off the well beaten path and walked on a smaller, less walked on path, and then when going back down the mountain, we ran into two soldiers. When we asked them how to get back to the parking, they said we could take the path all the way down, but that at the end, there was only an entrance and not an exit, plus it is only allowed to be used for military personnel, so we may not be able to get out through that way. When I heard that, I almost started laughing … so how were we going to get out? But thankfully, in the end, we ran into an old woman who knew the paths of the mountain very well, and she led us through a short cut that went straight to the parking area. Aside from that little mishap, our hikes are very enjoyable and we can see many types of birds, plants, small animals and even monkeys! I think the monkeys are very cute but the Taiwanese usually don’t like them because they say these monkeys can take food from hikers and even though the monkeys are pretty small, I heard they sometimes start attacking hikers if they don’t give up the food…(scary)

My 18th birthday was also this month! On the morning of my birthday, the 13th, nothing out of the ordinary happened; I walked to school and class started as usual. At lunch, I started to eat the beef cup-noodles my Finnish friend gave me as a present, and two of my classmates told me to go downstairs to the first floor to eat lunch. When we went down, my whole class was standing there with smiles on all of their faces; they sang “Happy Birthday” to me in English, Chinese, and Taiwanese :’) I was touched! Then some of them handed me hand-made birthday cards, which is how the Taiwanese do cards ~haha. I’d really like to thank my class for doing that for me. It really made my week. Also, the weekend after my birthday, I had another small celebration with the exchange students and a friend at Central Park. We took tons of pictures, just had fun in the park, and played around in the MRT station 🙂 They are really all great friends to me that I couldn’t ever forget.

I realized that I have been leaving my thanks out of my past journals, so I’d like to once again say my thanks to the Rotary Clubs of Clearwater East and Kaohsiung North for supporting me, financially, and in spirit 🙂

A list of a few more things I love about Taiwan:

Watermelon milk, dong gua pearl tea and soup dumplings (xiaolongbao) with lots of ginger and spicy soy sauce

How much people love food here and how walking two seconds in any direction can get you cheap, good food

Actually, walking two seconds in any directions can get you to pretty much anything: the doctor’s, night markets, shopping areas, theaters, movie renting stores, etc.

I don’t have to worry about shaving my legs (sorry if that’s too much information)

Pretty much everything is cheap, cheap, cheap

Taiwanese people are just plain out wonderful people

Taiwanese nicknames: Rock, Banana, Little Fatty, China woman, Duck, etc.

Night markets

Transportation is amazing! Subway, busses, taxis…all cheap and super convenient

Hair cutters give free massages

And I recently realized Taiwanese people love love love to eat fried chicken and drink watermelon juice with it haha

Until next month, 安娜

May 25 Journal

I walk down San-duo street, from the subway station to my host family’s home like I have been doing most days since January and think back on my year here in Taiwan. I can’t believe nine months have already passed; it was nine months ago that I was saying goodbye to my parents, brother, and grandmother at the Tampa International Airport and having a short, two minute breakdown on the plane to Chicago. Nine months have passed since I stepped off the plane from Taipei to Kaohsiung and in a rushed, confused couple of hours met my first host family, counselor, Rotary chairperson, and then went to eat what I thought was jellyfish (which I learned was actually just pork in a rice-made, gooey, transparent dumpling). Nine months have passed since I’ve met some of the most amazing people I have EVER met: Taiwanese, and exchange students.

Leaving this place is really going to be hard. Like everyone before and after me have said and will say, leaving our family and friends behind at home is ok because we’ll see them soon again, but leaving our family and friends behind in our new home is completely different; who knows when we’ll be seeing them all again.

However, I’ve been working really hard to get all my transcripts, past syllabi, course materials and other things together, and studying Chinese extra hard lately because my new short term goal is to come back for college next August. I have already visited my preferred college (National Sun-Yat Sen University – 中山大學) a few times and have gotten to know the counselor of the school’s foreign language major/studies, as I hope to come back next year and get a Bachelor’s Degree from this university in Foreign Languages.

The things I’ve been doing lately to better my Chinese: I bought a new empty book that is especially made with little squares to practice writing Chinese characters; I’ve been reading the newspaper almost every day at school; I started watching Taiwanese dramas again haha… but they’re really very good since all Taiwanese TV has Chinese subtitles so it’s good for listening and reading comprehension skills; I’ve also been taking practice tests online in preparation for the a big Chinese test I will be taking: the Chinese T.O.P., aka, Chinese Test of Proficiency.

I was hoping to take this test the minute I learned I must take this test in order to apply to universities and/or scholarships here, but I found out I was too late to take it in Taiwan (it was May 1st), so now I have to take it in NEW YORK next January/February. It’s very troublesome, but I’m really set on coming back to continue my Chinese studies, so I’m going for it!

Aside from busying myself with college stuff, I’ve also been preparing for a big speech coming up this Friday. I will be one of the two inbound students giving a speech at this year’s Taiwan Rotary Youth Exchange Program Annual Event. I’m a bit nervous, of course, but I know opportunities like these are helping me now and will help me for the future. I can’t wait!

On a bike trip this past weekend, all the exchange students from Districts 3510 and 3470 got together to go on a bike ride in Kaohsiung (my city) and I was given what I consider to be the biggest compliment exchange students could give me. They took one look at me and said, “You’re so Taiwanese!” …it was almost 100 degrees and I was wearing a hat and a black sweater over my clothes to cover from the sun. I was planning on wearing long pants and a mouth cover for extra blockage, but I figured I may pass out from heat stroke and so just ended up using a ton of sun block ~haha. I’m just as worried about getting skin damage/premature wrinkling as the next Taiwanese is.

So to conclude, this past month has been quite the busy one, but I’m actually really liking the busyness as it helps me keep my mind off leaving Taiwan…however, I’m often torn between two emotions: yearning to go back home to Palm Harbor, and yet very reluctant to leave my home, Kaohsiung. It’s almost a scary feeling. I’ll be leaving most of this year behind me on a 20 some hour plane ride.

Why is the expanse between Kaohsiung and Palm Harbor so long?

Until next time, 安娜

July 20 Journal

I leave tomorrow. I can’t seem to get the thought through my head. This whole year has pretty much come to an end.

I realized that my past journals have all been about my leaving Taiwan, so now, I think I’ll focus on different things…and as a warning, this journal may seem rushed and a bit messy, but that’s just because it’s my last day in Taiwan, and I’m really busy~

The conference at the end of May went well! My speech went by pretty smoothly (only a few small slips and short blankouts haha), and it was fun to be able to see all the exchange students in the Multidistrict Taiwan–I even saw Steven! The first time I’ve seen him since the plane ride from San Diego to Taipei. I was also told by a guy I met from Michigan that my accent sounds really south Taiwanese (a.k.a. not very standard Chinese, with a bit of Taiwanese mixed in :D). And this past month I also switched to my third host family! I live a bit farther from the downtown area of Kaohsiung, in the northern, a bit upscale region of “Aozihdi.” I have three younger host sisters and a really nice mother and father 🙂

Another cool thing is that since my mother (my biological mother in the US) is an ESL teacher, she has students from all around the world. One student, Ku- En Chang a.k.a. Alvin from Taiwan, came back to Taiwan to see his family, and he came to Kaohsiung with some friends to see me! It was nice to see a friend from the US 😀 We all went out to eat dinner and the following day went to sing at KTV (karaoke).

After living in Taiwan for a year, calling it home for a year and now reflecting on this year, I’ve realized there are a lot of things in Taiwan that you really have to live here for a while to notice; things that I’m sure surprises foreigners here in Taiwan at first, but things that we eventually get used to; things that the tourist will probably not notice; things I noticed the first week I was in Taiwan and the week my father came to Taiwan: The bright red, paper banners with calligraphy hung on the doors for Chinese New Year’s but kept there the whole year; the outside markets with bare-handed, elderly, strong women butchering all kinds of bloody meats; 台客- those guys riding on scooters super fast, weaving in-and-out of cars, hair usually an attempted-blonde, white and blue rubber house slippers on their tanned feet, shirtless or wearing a wife-beater, and no helmets or non-buckled helmets; no, those red splashes on the ground aren’t blood; knowing when a person really means it, or is just saying it out of “courtesy;” the vicious circle of obsessive studying, cram-schooling, and staying up late imposed on Taiwanese children; when you answer “neither” to the question “do you want to eat rice or noodles,” people think you’re on a dangerous diet (“you can’t get full on a meal without rice or noodles!”); eating so much you feel like you’re going to burst, and then having mothers telling you “多吃ㄧ點! 你太瘦了” “eat more! you’re too skinny;” squatting toilets are the best! clean and you don’t have to touch it with any part of your body; you have to order your food the second you sit down or the waiter will just stand there staring at you until you order; those are stray dogs, even though they have collars–look, it’s missing a leg; the difference between the Taiwanese, Chinese, Hakka and many aboriginal languages is very easy to tell; you know the weatherman must be lying when he says it’s only 95 degrees outside; you know not to ever really listen to the weatherman because he’s only talking about Taipei; those are Thai people, those are Filipinos, those are Vietnamese, those are Indonesians, those are Aborigines, those are Hakka, those are northern Taiwanese, those are southern Taiwanese, those are Japanese, and yes, I can tell the difference; no, there really isn’t air conditioning in the homes, schools, some public buildings, some government buildings, etc, and no, they’re not going to turn the air conditioning on; walking on the street with scary Taiwanese traffic is the norm; you will get used to the staring; those really loud noises are just firecrackers at 5 in the morning in the middle of the city. (For more of these true blue Taiwanese facts of daily life, take a look at the “You know you’ve lived in Taiwan too long when…” list on facebook! –http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2220957263&v=info&ref=ts)  

….The list goes on and on and on. Taiwan has so many little quirks here and there, but that’s what makes it so beautiful 🙂

And, although I’ll be missing my Taiwan more than anything, to be fair to home-sweet-home, here’s a list of things I’m mostly missing these days:

1. My family and friends
2. Hearing and speaking English and Spanish
3. DIVERSITY! I miss being in a class of 15 people and 10 are from different ethnic roots, backgrounds, cultures, traditions, etc.
4. My grandmother’s Costa Rican food, peanut butter, and REAL orange juice
5. Air conditioning and less humidity
6. Going to college (I go to a community college back in Florida)
7. Going to school around 8 and getting out around 1~2
8. Wearing my own clothes all the time (uniforms are great when I’m too lazy to get ready in the morning, though XD)
9. Not having to walk/ride bike so much in infernal weather
10. Sleep 🙂

As a last note, I must say, my year has been less than perfect (as every exchange student’s has been, I’m sure), but there has been a big mishap that has altered the last feelings of my trip all-together. My airplane ticket was bought from the Taipei Airport, not Kaohsiung. So, unlike all my exchange student friends, I will not be getting a farewell from all my classmates, host families, and friends at the airport, and instead may actually have to take the high-speed rail to Taipei. The fact that I’m not going to be leaving from Kaohsiung really hurts me, because I’ve called this place home for practically an entire year, there are so many memories here, I’ve said goodbye to all the exchange students here, and all my friends and families would be able to say goodbye to me here.

I know I’ve written all my journals this past year to make it seem like this year in Taiwan has been perfect, but as everyone knows it can’t possibly be absolutely, 100% perfect, but this year was not about being perfect, it was about experiencing new things, learning new lessons, re-learning old lessons, and seeing life through a different cultural perspective, through other people’s eyes.

This will be the last time I write a journal in Taiwan T_T However, I just want to thank the Rotary Clubs of Clearwater East and Kaohsiung North, my three host families, and last but definitely not least, my friends here in Taiwan, and my family back at home for supporting me throughout this whole 11 month stay in the beautiful, tropical, warm island of Taiwan. This year was definitely one I’ll remember forever; one that has changed me as a person, and has changed my future 🙂 Thank you everyone.

I LOVE TAIWAN!!

Good luck to the new outbounds and inbounds, and I hope that you all have a prosperous, pleasurable, and memorable year (which I’m sure you all will :D).

With love,

陳安娜

Adriana Ojeda

Andrea’s Bio

Well to start off, I want to thank everyone in the Rotary Youth Exchange program for giving me this wonderful opportunity that will allow me to learn a new language, meet new people, and grow as a person. Also I feel very fortunate to have the chance to represent my country and since I have lived in so many cities, these experiences have helped me to learn about the large diversity of cultures throughout our country. Currently I am a senior at Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Florida and I love it! I love to participate in after school activities such as Honors French Club, National Honor Society, PRIDE, and my new found passion, Lacrosse (even though I am not that good).

Right now I live with my mom, my dad, my sister Natalia, and my dog Simon. I have a great relationship with both my parents but I am especially close to my mom (everyone says we’re like twins!). What I love about our relationship is that we are both very open with each other and we tell it like it is. We are both very much alike in the sense that we always try to make the best out of any situation and try to make people around us feel comfortable. As for my sister (which is my dad but with a wig), we have always had an interesting relationship. As I am one who easily attaches to people as she is the opposite, we have always had a hard time to be affectionate with each other. But regardless of our polar personalities, she is my sister above anything else and I will always love herJ. As for my Dad, who is the authority figure of the house, I have always felt a great sense of admiration and respect for him. Always when I have two pathways in front of me, I ask myself what would Dad do? And based on that, I make my decision. And even though I feel like I do have a close knit family, I know that this experience will give me the chance to have my own autonomy, and since I will be far away from my security blanket, I will have to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do it and am ready to be on my own.

 Andrea’s Journals

October 15 Journal

Bonjour!! I know that my journal is a tad bit late but I have been so busy with school and French classes that I hardly have the time to get on the computer! Well. my departing day was August 14th and saying good-bye to my parents was more emotional than I would have ever thought. It was then and there that it finally hit me that I wasn’t going to be able to see their familiar faces for a whole year!! I grabbed unto my mom and dad and tried to grab every scent, tear, and emotion that I could and take it with me. I arrived to the beautiful city of Brussels on August 15th at 8:00 AM.

There I was one of the last people who received their baggage so embarrassingly enough, my family that I had never even met before had to wait for me for about an hour! As soon as I was out the door I tried to remember what my new parents’ faces looked like from the pictures they had sent before. But not one face in that endless crowd of people matched the pictures. I quickly thought great. They probably got tired of waiting and went to the Rotary Club to ask for a new exchange student that wouldn’t make them wait.

As I was about to surrender all my hopes on ever finding them, I noticed four ecstatic looking faces staring directly at me. Confused, I looked behind me expecting to see another exchange student waving back at them. When I finally realized that it was for me, they were already surrounding me and filling me with excitement and terror at the same time. When I had the time to reflect I began analyzing their faces and realizing that they were starting to look more and more like the faces in the pictures I had received a couple of months back. It was at that moment that I knew that my new life had just begun.

They happily started introducing themselves while each of them gave me a kiss on the cheek. I found out that my new mom’s name was Florence, my dad’s Joel, my sister (who is 17 and is right now in Texas with Rotary) was Celine and my younger brother’s name was Boris. I only met my new sister for a couple of hours in the airport since she had to catch her flight to leave to Texas.

As soon as we got to my new home, which is located in Herve, Belgium, I was astonished at how many cows would be my new neighbors! They were all around us in immense pasture fields that go on for miles. As soon as we arrived, my parents started showing me around the house which is a very comfortable and spacey 2 story-house. I was very pleased and excited when I finally got to see my new room that I would be staying in for 5 months, for it is extremely colorful and full of artisanal and exotic looking objects. I quickly realized that my host sister was definitely an artist, for all of her room was full of her paintings and they are very, well… I would say interesting haha. I also met my new dog ( not to mention my new favorite sleeping buddy!) Juliette who is a beautiful brown and black schnauzer (I think that’s how you write it =S) aged 10.

As I was beginning to settle in to unpack my luggage I heard two knocks at the door and curiously peeped through the staircase to see who it might be. When the door opened I noticed two very tall and European looking girls standing with bright gleaming faces skimming the surface to see the new American girl that would be replacing their best friend (or in other words me!). As soon as they saw me, their expressions automatically changed from skepticism to curiosity to excitement. They eagerly waved back and forth and I, sharing their enthusiasm ran down the stairs to meet them. I soon found out that they were sisters who live right next door to us! The older one is named Flore age 19 and the younger one who is 16 (even though she looks like she is 20!) is named Maoud. They have quickly become two of my best friends in Belgium and almost all of my progress in French is due to them!

My school which is called the IPH is about a walking distance of 10 minutes from my house and I am loving it! Everybody is so nice and so curious and amazed when I tell them that I’m from Miami! The weather here is getting colder by day and I am dreading the day it will start to snow! I get cold very easy … jaja but I guess that’s a part of the learning experience ;)…

I have sent some pictures of my new family and friends and some places that I have visited! I hope you enjoy and I will keep you posted! I hope everyone is having an amazing experience and enjoying every second of it! Au revoir!

December 1 Journal

Bonjour tout le mondee! I have been here over 3 months and I am loving it!(I know since the last time we talked I definitely had a problem with the time issue of sending my report and I know this time isn’t any better but I had to find a Cafè with internet because my family’s computer has some major virus issues:s…) But I don’t want you to think that I didn’t learn my lesson because I definitely did! And next time I’ll get it right and be one of the first ones to send it in!

The ironic thing is that out of all the countries in the world that I could have chosen I think I chose the one where time is the biggest issue! No one here is ever late and the saying ‘I am fashionably late’ is non-existent. I have definitely been learning the hard way of respecting schedules and understanding the way Belgians think. As my counselor, Françis explained to me, if you make a rendez-vous (date/meeting) with a Belgian and you start by arriving late you are insulting what they value the most which is their time. So as far as that I can definitely say that it has been a huge culture shock to know how much they respect that morale but on the other hand I know that if I start having more of a Belgian mentality in that sense I could definitely use it to my advantage and avoid any problems due to my ‘lack of sense of urgency’ as my dad likes to call it.

So other than that small bump on the road (that thankfully I am learning to smooth out!) everything has been amazing! All of my dreams since about a month ago have been all in French (even though for some reason in my dreams I speak it really bad =S) but I definitely take that as a leap forwards because it means that I am now officially thinking in my host language:) My family is absolutely amazing and I have no desire to change in January! If it were up to me I would stay with them the whole year! I have my neighbor Flore which has become my best friend and my host brother Boris (whom I call Bo Bo!) who has become like the little brother that I’ve always wanted! He has an amazing sense of humor and always finds ways to make me laugh. Even though he’s only 15 he totally understands my situation and I can tell him absolutely everything. I don’t even want to think about when I’m going to move!:( I know I’m gonna cry!

In school everything has been going smoothly and in comparison to the beginning I have been doing much better. I understand everything and I’ve even passed a couple of tests! I feel extremely proud of myself that even though my grammar is not, let’s say, ‘accurate,’ I make my point and it is understandable:). I am learning the colorful vocabulary of my region which is called Wallonia and have even learned a couple of words in the ancient French, Wallon. Most of the words are, let’s say, ‘politically incorrect’ so unfortunately I cannot share them with you through mail. And because Belgium is divided into three regions, one being Flanders, my host dad, Joel has actually had the patience to teach me a couple of words in Flamant, for example Ich ben Andrea! (which means I am Andrea, as you probably all guessed), so I guess I’ll come back learning two languages:)… Not! First I think I should get French down and then I’ll think about learning one of the hardest languages possible!

But speaking about the main reason why I came here(the reason being learning how to speak French!) I’m not going to lie and say it’s perfect because it definitely has its ups and its downs. There are days that I feel as if I were born French and speak with an extreme ease, but there are other days (like today!):( which I feel as if I were in another planet! But that is occurring less and less every day and for that I am extremely grateful:).

I haven’t traveled much this month but tomorrow I am going to Germany to la marche de Noel! which is a Christmas parade, with Rotary. I can’t believe that Christmas is almost here and that I have already done a third of my exchange! That is extremely depressing to think about and I hope the year goes much much slower! I just know that I am enjoying each and every second of my year here and a huge part of it is thanks to Rotary! Donc merci beaucoup pour cette opportunité extaordinaire que vous m’avez donné. (Thank you so much for this extraordinary opportunity that you have all given me.) I have attached some pictures of my Rotary friends and school friends while we are celebrating the day of St. Nicholas! Which is the day of the children in Belgium and a couple of other pictures of my house and so forth. So Good Night from Belgium and until next month! Aurevoir tout le monde et bonne nuit!

Austin’s Bio

My name’s Austin, yes and I am a girl. I currently attend St. Edwards School and am in grade 9. I’m a 14 year old girl living in the Alcatraz of the Treasure Coast just waiting to be set free to Italy. I can’t thank Rotary enough for this experience. I don’t remember a time when I hadn’t wanted to be a foreign exchange student and now thanks to Rotary I’ve got my wish. Italy is going to be amazing no matter where I end up.

I am unique in more ways than my name. For as in the words of Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I love to play around with video editing software and with my video camera capturing the world’s beauty and at times lack thereof. Usually I’m in two plays each time someone asks me, “What play are you doing now?” Also I love writing stories, poems, and songs. I live and breathe anything remotely creative. This includes videography, photography, singing, writing, dancing, acting, reading, scrapbooking, anything.

I’m not afraid to express my opinions openly; I can’t just stand idly by while an injustice is happening, it’s not who I am. I pride myself in knowing who I am. Once when I was younger I took the first page in my journal and wrote “who I am” sentences. I was only half way done when I ran out of room.

Often I tend to express myself through lyrics of songs or quotes from famous writers, this is just a warning for all you people reading this blog. I love music. My iPod goes everywhere with me, it’s filled with songs; Broadway musicals, Prince, the Jonas Brothers, and others. The music I listen to defines who I am; a mix of a little bit of everything waiting to be filled up with new experiences.

I’ve probably forgotten half of the things I need to tell you about but that can wait for later.

“They say people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them. And we help them in return. Who can say if I have been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for good.” –“For Good” Wicked

“A presto!” Which in Italian means “See You Later!”

 Austin’s Journals

September 14 Journal

7 days I’ve been here. In this country. And let me tell you this; it doesn’t feel like it. Not one bit.

It feels like I’ve been here at least a month. At first I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. Just call it the American Way; we just want to hear our own language and not anyone else’s. But don’t worry I got over that real quickly. I kinda had too. My Host Parents don’t speak English at all. And If I really needed to ask for something ,and they couldn’t understand when I said it in broken Italian. They would bring up my Host Dad’s Secretary. At least that’s what we did the first day.

Now it’s a week in, and I can understand about three-fourths of what everyone’s saying. Unfortunately I’m still not that confident in my Italian to actually form compete sentences , but I’m working on it. At least one lesson in my Italian workbook everyday and struggling though the Italian version of Twilight. Which I don’t remember as well as I thought I did when I forked over 18 euros for it.

I have actually made a couple friends my first week here. All of them thirteen year old boys. You may be asking yourself why I’m hanging out with all thirteen year old boys and that’s a good question. Michael, a fellow foreign exchange student from Florida who has been in Cagliari three times as long as I have (don’t worry, we do speak in Italian unless he’s explaining an Italian word), and his host brother Luca have taken it upon themselves to show me the city. Which according to a thirteen-year-old is taking the bus to the arcade, inviting all his fellow thirteen-year-old friends, and playing there for hours. But don’t worry I have seen other parts of my city.

The police station I live at is right next to a bunch of winding streets compete with old buildings and tons of shops. Yes, that’s right, I did just say I live at a police station. And no, it’s not because my visa was denied and I’m waiting for an armed escort to take me back to the United States. I do actually live in a flat on the fourth floor of the police station . My Host Dad is the head of the entire police force in Sardinia (which is a huge island), so he has a lot of power and we get to stay in the police station. If you’re thinking the police station is huge, with its own two-story high wall, spikes on the balconies, a huge armored gate where you have to be on camera and buzzed up to get in, and retractable shutters on all the windows … you’d be absolutely right. It’s pretty awesome.

Anyway so in-between learning every single Italian curse word (and some in other languages), basically a given when hanging out with thirteen-year-old boys in any country, I actually got to see the beach. The beach here is really different from Florida. To start with there is a ton of people there, not so much in Vero Beach, and there is a rock side and a sand side. Of course the boys head to the rock side (where no one is) so they can go catch octopuses. They literally had scuba masks and spent over an hour searching for octopuses so they could catch and eat them. Not Michael though, I don’t think he shares in their passion for octopuses.

I also have been to the mall quite a few times. I know what you’re thinking: Is their mall any different from the American malls? A bit…but only a bit. First of all, it’s less formal and clean. Like in American malls you would never find a cart in the middle of the walkway selling kind of explicit t-shirts, and they have giant superstores (think Best Buy only more Walmarty) attached to their malls. There’s also something very strange in the stores that I feel the need to point out: in almost every store there is at least one naked mannequin, even in clothing stores. And no, I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just a stupid native American but until now I was pretty sure the point of a mannequin was to show off the clothes. I guess I was wrong?

I have also experienced the Italian cinema. Which again is pretty much the same as ours only they are only open at night and have assigned seats in the theatre. So yes the Italian movie theaters sell greasy popcorn and cokes just like in the US.

Over this last weekend, I went with my Host Family to see their friends in North Sardinia. I was looking forward to seeing their version of “country” (I live in a big city) and, let’s be honest, get away from all the thirteen-year-old boys. Well during this weekend I learned two things. The first thing was, that the Sardinian version of “country” is a Northern-California-like Italian villa on a mountain overlooking the sea and their own personal vineyard and swimming pool. And the second thing I learned was that somehow I can’t get away from these barely teen Italian boys – my host parents’ friends have a thirteen-year-old son.

In the small town about 4 kilometers away, they were having a small festival for the feast day of Santa Maria. The cool part about the town was it has small streets curving around a mountain with a castle on top! A CASTLE! I’ve always wanted to see a castle in real life and now I have! It seriously was an amazing experience. The festival took place in all these tiny streets with people everywhere; there were some flea market type stands set up, and then there were families with huge tables eating dinner right in the cobblestone streets. After pretty much getting lost in the huge maze of streets we went to a pizzeria called Paradise, where I had my first real foreign exchange mess up. Was anyone else aware that in low-light the plural version of man and woman in Italian look very similar so that the I at the end of man could be mistaken for a E? So as you might have guessed I walked into the men’s bathroom instead of the women’s, which was a whole lot nicer than the women’s was. I’m just saying. I don’t think anyone saw except of course…the thirteen-year-old boy. Who then pointed it out to everyone at the table. Can’t wait till school starts…I need friends my age and gender.

Yes, school has not started yet. Italian school apparently starts the latest of any school in the world. I start school on Thursday and from what I can tell the Italian school system works like this: school goes six days a week from 8:15 to 1:30. Around 1:30 everything in the city closes down (even most restaurants and the police station) and everyone goes home and has lunch. Quite different from the USA where I would either have lunch at school or just grab a bite to eat at Subway. Then in the afternoon (if you don’t have a job to get back to) you either nap, study, or do an after-school activity with the city. I think I’m going to be enrolled in volleyball but I’m not positive. I’m going to be in level two of the Italian high school located across the street from the police station I’m staying at. It’s a social school, which means I’ll be studying psychology and what not. Due to the subject of the school it does not attract many guys, which means it is an almost all girls-school. Even so I am really looking forward to starting school; weird as it maybe I did really enjoy school in the states and I’m really looking for a challenge. School in another language should be just that.

I’ll update again later. Thank you again Rotary.

Ciao,

Austin

September 25 Journal

This last week and a half I have got in trouble with the law, started a trend and watched it die, been stared at, watched about six movies in Italian, seen sights that were built by the Romans, and eaten snails. Basically a normal week for a foreign exchange student. But first things first:

“Then the smoke engulfed my throat sending me on fast-paced race though time and space. The porthole in front of me closing every second I couldn’t breathe. The coughs getting louder and more fanatic until I could no longer speak.”

Okay…so that’s a bit dramatic. Okay…so it could be right out of a J. R. R. Tolkien novel. But that’s what has been happening to me the last couple of weeks. Along with a lot of other less important and less ironic events that I will get to in just a moment.

Now you may think the dramatic paragraph is a metaphor for something like say…not knowing the language. Although I will probably do something like that in a blog entry in the near future, no that’s not it. It’s completely really exaggerated truth. For the past one and a half weeks (I’ve been here about 2 and a half) I have been suffering from a very sore throat, that at times won’t allow me to speak in even the modest Italian I know. Also if you have never explained to someone who doesn’t understand you why you can’t speak, let me tell you it’s very difficult and not something I’d like to repeat.

I’ve been doing much research concerning my sore throat and I have come to a slightly concerning conclusion. I seem to have a semi-violent reaction to second-hand smoke … who knew? Now if you have been to Italy you probably wouldn’t know this (unless of course you watched those slightly popular Mafia movies) but everybody in Italy smokes (except my Host Parents). All the time. We literally have vending machines that dispense cigarettes to any civilian willing to pay up to 4 euros. And I’m here to tell all the people that say the percentage of teenage smokers is going down, to come to Sardinia. Because the only percentage I’m seeing is the 2% of teenagers that don’t smoke in my school. If I wasn’t dying from second-hand smoke I would totally take this time to appreciate this extraordinary slice of Italian culture. But since I am dying, let’s move on to more beautiful aspects of the Italian/ Sardinia world.

Even with the sore throat, it has been an eventful week and a half since I last updated. I have not only watched both Snow White and Harry Potter (1) in Italian, I have watched Shrek (Donkey + Italian accent = Funniest Movie Ever)! I should probably start from a couple days after I last updated though, I’ll get back to Shrek.

Michael, Luca, and I went to the mall last Wednesday to celebrate their last day of Summer (mine was Friday since I didn’t start school till Saturday.) So there I was; a confused foreign exchange student that barley speaks the language, trying to tackle the Cagliari bus system. So I had just got on the bus twenty seconds before, I hadn’t even dug my ticket out of my wallet yet when all of a sudden the bus stopped and the Transportation Enforcers got on. Luca gabs my ticket out of my hand and high-tails it to the back of the bus and forces it in the slot. Then he ran back and gave it to me, sweet innocent me. Remember that…sweet innocent me. Of course the transportation guy who was checking everyone’s ticket sees this, and then like an evil vulture swooping in on his prey, he was at my side in an instant. Then he checks my ticket, his watch, and then pulls out a pink pad. I’ve never seen pink look more intimidating. Then he launches into a hugely elaborate rapid Italian speech that I understood only two words of: Passport or Identification. Hesitantly I hand him my Florida Permit, then without missing a beat he launches into another rapid Italian speech. I just look at him like he’s crazy. Michael then decides to pop in explaining that I’m American and I don’t speak Italian. Thanks Michael for that. Glad you have so much faith in me. So to put a long story short the bus ride was the most expensive bus ride I have ever taken … 21 euros. And the worst part? I used a whole bus ticket also. Does anyone else find it very ironic that I got in trouble with the law when my host Dad is the head of the Sardinia police department?

I have also met another Rotary Youth Exchange student in Cagliari. Her name is Katie and she’s from Hawaii. It’s great to talk to someone from a far-away place that I’ve never been, it’s almost like she’s from a different country that happens to speak the same language. Michael, Katie, our Host Moms, and I met up at the park last Thursday for some bonding. The park was kind of a cross between a broken down carnival, a central-park want to be, a bird sanctuary, a national-park, and a playground. Yes … I am still wondering how they managed to accomplish all that also.

Friday night my host parents and I went to what I assume was supposed to be a Dinner Party. But it was at nine o’clock at night (normal dinner time for Italians) and all we had was Italian sandwiches. The party was thrown by a family who I believe works and is friends with my host Dad. Of course all the guests included: their cousins, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, grandparents, brothers-in-law of their cousins. Basically their whole extended family which again, did include a fourteen year old boy. Seriously ironic? There was also a girl that was my sister in Florida’s age who I enjoyed talking to. She wanted to ask me about all the Disney Channel stars and what was Disney World like. When the fruit was served, watermelon and grapes, I made an off-sided comment that in America we have seed-less fruit. Then my half of the room went quiet. Apparently I had just blown everyone’s minds. So, Americans, if you’re reading this, don’t take your seedless fruit for granted, in other countries they can’t just pop a grape in their mouths like you can.

Then Saturday was the First Day of School. I think I was the last person in Rotary Youth Exchange Florida to start school. I showed up the first day in a bright pink shirt, green converses, blond hair, and a purple backpack. To say I stood out in the all brunette, belt-wearing, designer-handbag-carrying, dark-colored-clothing school would be a compete understatement. The first day of school was crazy, I seriously had no idea what was happening. In honor of the first day of school, we sat in a random classroom (that apparently wasn’t ours) for about 3 hours with some random teachers that would come in and ask us about our summer and about the American who could only understand what they were saying when they were talking about her, Harry Potter, or French. Then school was let out. I at least got to meet my classmates though. We have one guy in our entire class – all the rest is girls aged 13 to 17. I still have yet to figure out how that works out.

Second day of school was even more confusing since we changed our classroom and apparently half my class changed some of their style. I walked in thinking I would blend in with my black shirt, white belt, and skinny jeans. It took about three seconds for me to count the number of pink shirts in my class … six. Safe to say, I didn’t fit in to my own style. Typical. Everything was back to normal by Tuesday of the last week but I’m still confused. Did I start a trend or was everyone just trying to confuse me? These are the questions foreign exchange students must ask themselves.

On either Monday or Tuesday I’m going to start playing Volleyball (or Volly as the Italians call it) after school, which I’m really excited about. I had a very confusing time trying to buy volleyball shoes the other day. Apparently the sizes are really different. Not only does six become thirty-eight but the American sizes on the tag are always wrong. I’m not usually a six in the US but that’s what the shoe that fit is marked as. Strange.

I have tried some interesting dishes lately including pig’s skin, pig head, and snails. Luckily I took a deep breath and tried them. Since I’ve never been that fond of pork (that isn’t bacon or hot dogs) I didn’t particularly enjoy the pig’s skin or pig head, but the snails actually tasted a bit like shrimp. Maybe I would actually eat more than four of them if they weren’t served in a big pot with blood-red sauce and their shells still attached, so at first glance I wouldn’t think “Omg my Host Parents are murderers and they eat their victim’s eyeballs.” Okay so I’ll admit to watching a bit too much horror movies in my spare time.

Last Sunday I visited some of the most famous historical sites of Cagliari. We started with the Roman Amphitheater and then worked our way up the mountain. In Ancient Cagliari almost everything was built on a mountain (or I guess you could say large hill) in the middle of the city, this includes the Castello (fancy Italian word for Castle) which is located at the top. The Castello is really a big open area surrounded by large ancient walls and about four towers, then inside it is a mess of cobblestone streets and buildings jutting out of the walls. Just like every single other Italian street, even down to the parking problem. As we were making our way up to the Castello, we passed the Jail, which not only was located on prime real estate looking over a very nice park and a small church on a hill. It had an sea-front view and a beautiful view of all of Cagliari’s monuments and beauty. If that wasn’t enough, your loved ones could drive right up to the church on the hill, honk the horn of their car, and talk to you in your cell (which we saw three people doing) . So it’s safe to say if that fine thing doesn’t get settled I hope they put me there.

Well that is basically what happened the last few weeks in Italy. As a send-off I have included a special quote said by someone who I admire very much: “Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and the feel of the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” -Ashley Smith

Hey that isn’t the Shrek quote! Oh well. Thank you so much Rotary for allowing me to live my life to the fullest potential and fight for my dreams.

October 25 Journal

So I haven’t updated in a while, that’s probably apparent. A lot has happened… more than I can fit in my humorous pages-long blogs.

On the weekends my Host Family usually travel to North Sardinia and stay with their parents or friends, I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences on these trips so I have decided to dedicate this blog to telling you all about them.

This past weekend we made our way to a small town in the middle of the mountains of central Sardinia. And it’s safe to say that I, the petite innocent Florida girl whose sister wears sweaters in movie theaters, was not prepared for the large drop in temperature between the coast and the mountains. I should be truthful…my host mom had warned me, but did I believe her? That would be a no…just like when the boy cried wolf to many times that they didn’t believe him when it was true. My Host Mom had been making me wear sweaters for about two weeks prior to this in Cagliari, when it wasn’t cold. The good news is I still brought a coat anyway so at least I didn’t freeze to death.

We stayed with my Host Mom’s dad, and brother, and nephew, and sister in law, and a whole bunch of people that I don’t think really stayed in the flat with us but were just around a lot. I seriously couldn’t tell you who exactly who lived in the flat, there were that many people all the time. I heard that Italians had big families but I didn’t know the half of it until we went to my Host Cousin’s Confirmation. If you’re not Catholic you might not know what Confirmation is – Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments Catholic’s pass though during their religious upbringing. Usually it takes place when you are 11-15 and it is thought that in this sacrament you receive the Holy Spirit. Also in Italy, it is a very very very big deal.

The day started out at 10 am when mass started. The entire church was packed with people since all the closest family members came to the ceremony (grandparents, parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles.) I have never been to a mass that long before in my life, it lasted two hours. That’s longer than Midnight Mass on Christmas (which isn’t really that long but feels like forever…since it’s at midnight). The bishop (who looked like he could easily be a stand-in for the Pope) insisted on having a nice conversation with every single fifty-something kids, which might explain why it took so long. For the rest of the mass he just sat on the biggest chair in the back with two alter servers that were unlucky enough to be the ones to stand up and hold his hat and gold staff for two hours.

So after his Confirmation I heard we were going to lunch. Lunch on Sunday in Italy usually lasts for hours so I was prepared for a extremely long lunch probably with my host cousin and a couple more family members. But boy….I was wrong.

The family rented out half of this huge restaurant, and then the guests just kept arriving. Family members, friends, cousins, second cousins twice removed; They were all there. I couldn’t believe it. I can’t even imagine feeding that many people much less being related to all of them. There were at least 70 people there, probably more. What was even harder to comprehend was the amount and quality of the gifts he was getting. Designer watches, brand-new digital cameras, high-tech photo frames, more watches. All I got for my Confirmation was two cross necklaces and a couple Christian bookmarks.

Here let’s take a few moments to compare our Confirmations. He had all his close family members at his Confirmation. I had: my dad, my sister, and my dad’s best friend. Not exactly killing the seat count. My mom didn’t even come…she was at the first youth exchange orientation, which conveniently was the same weekend. Ironic how it has all come full-circle isn’t it?

So now lets move on to the North-East Sardinia visit that was about two weeks before this:

Before I go on with this blog post I would like to say I knew IT was going to happen. I didn’t know when and I didn’t know in which bathroom, but I knew it was going to happen. If you haven’t guessed it yet I had another bathroom incident.

So it started off as a completely innocent day on a trip to North Sardinia about 2 weeks ago. I mean we got up, ate Nutella on bread for breakfast, and then met about twenty of my host parents’ close friends who then hiked up a mountain to a dark scary cave that was at one time filled with Dead People. So all in all a pretty unsuspicious day. Never did I once expect the terror the day would have in store for me.

Before lunch and after we successfully concluded our mountain trek to the great cavemen’s and water-cult worshiper’s dwellings, I decided I needed to go to the bathroom. Italian lunches on Sunday usually last anywhere from two to four hours depending on the amount of talking, so you can see why I would want to go the bathroom before a meal (if you leave right before a course you miss out on all the good stuff since Italian food is served around the table not individually).

So innocently I made my way to the Bathroom following all the other ladies. There were three stalls and I walked into the last one. Italians use keys to lock their doors, so like I have done a million times before at numerous other bathrooms, I turned the key to lock the door. I really should have just held it.

After I’ve done my business I reach for the key and try to turn it, and if you haven’t guessed it already, who’s the stupid American that got locked in a bathroom? That’s right, Me. Scared I reached for the door handle, which of course didn’t budge. In America this would be no problem, someone would just alert the owner of the house who would have an extra key (or at least tell you what to do with the key jammed). But you see we’re in Italy, where I had never felt the need to learn phrases like “Turn the Key to your right.” Or “Please try to Ninja kick the door with all your strength.” I mean seriously, Rosetta Stone, what gives?

So anyway I was standing behind the bathroom door trying to at least pull the key out of the socket while about 15 Italian ladies are all shouting different things at me from the other side of the door in Italian. All I could think was ‘Why do things like this always happen to me?’ I mean all the other foreign exchange students write about how homesick they are and what amazing things they’ve done, and then I write about being stuck in a bathroom. I think we all know who is really exploring the culture.

To make a really simple story, that I could drag into an entire blog, shorter: I finally got out. Because if I didn’t I would be writing this blog from a small bathroom in North Sardinia, nah I’m just kidding. I would have been lifted out though the tiny window eventually. Finally someone realized I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, and came around to get the key from the small window. Then after repetitively trying to jam the key into the outside key hole, I finally got out. So I didn’t end up like the dead cavemen in the cave after all. Which speaking of, I should probably get back to

The cave we went into used to be an archaeologist site, and way before that it sheltered cavemen type people and served as a hide-out for the water cult tribe (whose village we also visited just a short 15 min walk away). About the whole dead people thing, they’ve found ancient bones in the cave. It’s not a murder scene, even though that cave was so dark it could have been used in a horror movie. It’s also up a very steep mountain climb, which I am proud to say I completed holding a glass and can of coke in two hands.

Why did I have a glass and a can of coke in my hands? It can best be explained in the words of Tim Parks in the book ‘An Englishman in Verona’: “While Italians usually seem to like foreigners, the foreigners they like most are the ones who know the score, the ones who have caved in and agreed that the Italian way of doing things is best…There is an order to follow in all things; follow it, even when it borders on the superstitious and ritualistic.” Which means when ever you have a can or a bottle of coke you need to pour it into a glass to drink it. Also whenever you have shrimp pasta, you always put the shrimp in the pasta sauce with the shells still on them. When I asked why you did this the only explanation they could give me was, ‘you don’t want anyone else touching your food.’ So they prefer to get their hands dripping in pasta sauce while trying to peel their own shrimp?

Other than those fun weekend trips, life is slowly starting to turn into…well life. Routine. Boredom. I’m even getting used to drinking coke in a glass and peeling my own shrimp.

But I am having a great time in Italy! Ciao till next time.

 December 13 Journal

To start off this way over due blog, I would like to offer a tip of advice to all future foreign exchange students, current foreign exchange students, world travelers, and the like.

You may want to be all adventurous when it’s Halloween night, and just decide to order something random off the menu. You know, even though you don’t understand what it is because you’ve never seen the word before. All you understand is that it’s drenched in lemon, and that it’s slightly cheap. I mean, seriously, it’s Italy, how bad can it be?

If you do, I would also suggest not starting by eating 1/3 of it, thinking it’s okay, and then turning to the girl next to you (who speaks some English) and asking what it is. Because I guarantee that most of the time, you won’t like the answer.

Turns out the yellowish meat drenched in lemon sauce, was actually baby cow meat. I used to have a baby cow, up until my great grand parents sold their farm. Thinking bout eating anything that used to be your pet, much less baby anything, can apparently make you lose your appetite pretty fast, in addition to the optional gagging.

Speaking of appetite, let’s cover “Our Merry Foreign Exchange Thanksgiving.” We started planning this Thanksgiving about a week before it was going to happen. Wait, starch that, we had the idea to do it the week before … we never even started buying things till the day before. We somehow managed to get our grubby hands on a HUGE turkey. Let’s just say one of our host parents knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone that knew where to get a gigantic turkey, since it only took us about five seconds of goggling to realize, they don’t sell turkeys in Sardinia.

Lets see, how can I describe the madness that went on that day?

The Italians weren’t too fond of the WAY we were cooking. Although they did think the food was good. As soon as Catie and Michael heard my comment about how I liked the movie ‘Julie and Julia’ because I often end up on the floor and with stuff everywhere whenever I cook, they stuck me on all the easy stuff. Like cutting up bread for the stuffing and measurements. And by measurements, I mean converting measurements the American way:

“5 grams of salt?” Catie reads off the online recipe. “How do you convert grams?”

Thank gawd for Google. “Um apparently it’s 23.42352 for salt,” I say before Catie comes over and grabs the salt out of my hands. She pours a handful into her hand, says “This should be about right,” and then precedes to just dump it in the bowl. What? It saves me from using the computer’s calculator. It’s safe to say the Italians just stood in the doorway, their faces in shock. Especially when we used our (clean) hands to spread the oil around the turkey. We foreign exchange students can cook a turkey with no fancy paintbrushes, turkey timers, or other things they market as a must-need for Thanksgiving. AT LOW LOW PRICES.

Actually, it turns out the only thing remotely cheap here is the food. Whenever us foreign exchange kids get together it basically consists of us walking up and down the hills of the shopping streets and then buying a sandwich and a coke. Or you know, we plan to communicate with sprits.

Yep. I just said communicate with sprits.

Apparently the police station where I live is haunted, at least that’s what my Host Dad told me during lunch yesterday. I was just sitting there at the table eating my pasta, and my host dad decides to tell me why the doors randomly slam shut and why things randomly disappear from where I put them. I could have gone my whole stay without hearing that someone was shot up here, thanks Host Dad. Like with the dish of baby cow meat, there are some things I just don’t want to know.

School has been going okay, well it was going smoothly until my Social teacher decides to show THE movie. Now most of us have seen THE movie, we’ve watched it in PE class or Health class. I’ve even seen it at least four times. I used to think it was a good movie. I mean it’s interesting that if you eat the most fatty foods at one of the most fatty restaurants you would get fat. I mean who knew? I also thought it was very creative how they interviewed a thousand people and then cut all the people that never eat at McDonalds and who actually know our national anthem. I never even thought that after foreigners watch it, they think all Americans are, well how do I put this, SuperSized.

Insert huge ‘Not all Americans are fat’ fight here.

It really was insane. The whole class spent the entire English period (the class right after social), arguing with me. Me, the American, who lives in AMERICA, and only knows maybe three obese people. Even calling them obese is really pushing it.

Then they go on to say, like most Italians do with everything, that their McDonalds was different because the sizes were smaller. I’ve been to Italians McDonalds while I’ve been here, once in the last 3 months. There sizes are the same, except I don’t think they offer a SuperSize menu. Now I’m no expert in McDonalds. I can’t even remember the last time I went in there in the States. Thought I’m pretty sure that the BigMacs I see Italians lined up out the door for in every mall have the exact same amount of fat as the ones in America.

Being here has really been my first encounter with racism. I’ve always have had friends of pretty much every race: African American friends, Italian friends, Indian friends, Mexican friends, German friends, Romanian friends, and Chinese friends. I’ve never really known anyone that was my age, or even my parents age, who didn’t like people just because of their race or their skin color. I’ve never known anyone who wouldn’t go into a restaurant because it was Chinese and therefore dirty. Or really do anything like that. It’s been a real eye opener for me. It really really has.

My Italian is getting better and better every day, as I fight the ever looming battle of trying to lose my French. I even managed to have my first dream in Italian, although it wasn’t the best first dream. The other person was speaking to me in perfect Italian and I was speaking Italian like a two year old. Who I did actually get to spend four days with this past weekend. That was fun.

So in a break from the constant 13 year old boys, I got to spend a weekend with my host mother’s sister’s two year old boy. Having never had any brothers, and never experienced living with a two year old (even for just four days), I was completely unprepared.

Of course this was in North Sardinia, where I tend to spend my weekends. This time it was for a wedding. I wish I could compare it to an American wedding, but I’ve never been to one before. The only wedding I can possibly compare it to is the weddings in ‘Wedding Planner’ and ‘Bride Wars’. Let’s see, apart from fact there were no brides having a fight in the aisle and the groom didn’t fall for the wedding planner, it was a typical church wedding. Well, a typical gathering for Italians anyway. The reception lasted about 10-12 hours, it took place in a huge restaurant hall, and it was all very loud due to all the second cousins and great uncles that tended to start screaming and clinking their glasses randomly.

It was pretty entertaining. Also during the reception, I figured out that Emily Cadet’s (the RYE student from Florida that is in North Sardinia) friend is actually a cousin to my host mom. Small world isn’t it? Or, I guess, small island.

Oh and I must report I’m doing better on the whole getting stuck in bathroom thing. I’ve only got stuck in 2 since I last updated!

Well I must go since it is Sunday, and therefore my only day of semi relaxation and lots of food.

February 3 Journal

Since I’ve last updated this; trouble-making, edge-of-your-mind-24-7, blog. Stuff. Has. Happened.

End of Blog.

Just Kidding.

It’s unavoidable really; stuff happening, me trying to be funny with only slightly hopeless jokes, some poor misunderstood new outbound student with a broken alarm clock getting yelled at by Al because they were mere minutes late.

Which for the record, only happened to me once. Thank you.

Since I’ve last updated I’ve done things you can probably not even imagine. Though that may sound like something right out of the screenplay of the newest James Bond movie (aren’t we up to like the 30th?), but in my case it’s actually true. That’s right. No Hollywood magic. No special effects. No blue people on an Imax screen. And no English screenwriter telling me what to say.

In the last month and a half, I’ve changed: I’ve changed families, I’ve changed my hair, and somewhere along that way…I’ve changed myself.

I’ve stood in front of an angry ocean, only to have it lash back and try to pull me in. I’ve listened as kids lit fireworks all night long, and I’ve squealed with enjoyment over the Christmas gifts I receive. I’ve made pancakes, rode on the back of a moped, won 40 euros just by eating some cake, and held ancient roman bricks in my hands. Then I’ve watched a friend go home, and willingly throw everything away.

Being here has been the hardest, most difficult, best, most boring, most incredible thing I’ve ever done (how’s that for a foreign exchange cliché). And even though I may not love every minute, I’m so thankful for all the minutes I spend not even knowing minutes are going by.

Even if the sea tries to capture me again (although you can bet me and the rest of the foreign exchange students are staying far away from rocks next to the ocean right after a storm), and even if at the next big holiday some Italian tries to light me on fire with a firework; nothing will make me give up this experience.

Okay so the truth is, maybe my Italian’s not perfect. And maybe I’m not very popular among my class, but that’s okay. Because for every second I try, it gets a little bit better. The world gets a little bit brighter. The lock on the bathroom door gets a little bit easier to unlock.

Last year in early 2009, as soon as I found out I was going to Italy: I rushed to this website and read a blog from one of the current outbound students. His name was Tim, and he was also aboard in Sardinia. At the time it inspired me, excited me, made me count down the months till I’d be exactly where he was. Then on December 26th 2009, five days till a year later, I was standing in the exact same spot where he spent the New Years in Sassari. Talk about the world coming full circle.

His journal from last year (January 11 Journal):

https://www.ryese.org/Students/OB/2008-09/tim.htm#jan11 

So I left a gap didn’t I?

“What did you do on Christmas? Why are kids shooting fireworks at you? How did you get paid 40 euros to eat cake (and how can I)?”

And yes…I am getting to all that. I should probably start where I left off, in the middle of December 2009.

So the weeks leading up to Christmas were basically uneventful. They were spent deciding what we should get our host parents, getting together to talk about what we should get our host parents, actually getting our lazy butts away from the computer to buy our host parents presents, and then seeing Beauty and the Beast performing in the middle of street. So, all in all, pretty uneventful.

SO let’s go back to the possible James Bond quote “I’ve done things you can probably not even imagine.” I mean unless you can imagine walking down the biggest shopping street in a pretty big Italian city ,the Saturday before Christmas, and see the musical Beauty and the Beast being performed in the middle of the street in full costume. Yes, that does means people were dressed up as teacups and clocks in the middle of the street singing in Italian. So if you can imagine that, my Yankee’s cap goes off to you.

The craziest thing is: they weren’t the only ones participating in this huge plow to distract us from our Christmas shopping, THERE WERE OTHERS. Including an orchestra, clowns, face-painters, and mimes. In the middle of the busiest shopping street, on the busiest day for shopping.

The week of Christmas, which in Italy stretches all the way from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, is basically spent doing two things: eating and then waiting to eat again. Did you really expect anything else? We’re in ITALY for goodness sakes!

After spending the holidays in North Sardinia (and visiting Sassari to hang out with my host cousin), I headed down to South South Sardinia to spend the New Years with Catie and her family. Although I didn’t know the firework battle I was getting into.

There were at least 15 kids younger than us, which basically translates into about 15 pyromaniacs whose parents gave them huge sacks full of fireworks. I don’t think I or anyone else slept for days, although it was still amazing. A couple more foreign exchange students were staying in the same neighborhood as us: Max from Germany, Sarah from Germany, and Caro from Bolivia. Along the course of six days we managed to get soaked by a wave, visit Nora (an archeological site in Southern Sardinia), and set off fireworks in water.

Then I had to face my worst nightmare, changing host families. I got about a week’s notice before I moved to their house, so I was a little upset. I had never met any of them before, had been told I wasn’t changing families, and was moving more than thirty minutes outside my beloved city.

Now I’m used to it; all the waking up early, taking the bus, having to organize plans before hand. It helps that my new host family is very sweet and understanding. I now live in a big house in the mountains with a beautiful view outside my window. A stark contrast to having barbed railings and living in a police station. My two host families are exact opposites of each other, but that’s what I love about them. It’s the whole point of changing families, seeing things from a completely different perceptive.

So you’ve read this far and are probably wondering how you too can get paid forty euros to eat a cake. I know it’s such a sacrifice to eat cake (why do you think Marie Antoinette wanted people to eat it?), but listen to me closely – here’s what the brave of heart need to do.

Step 1. Come to Sardinia (I’m not sure if it’s played in other Italian states, although it may be).

Step 2: Be here on the Epiphany (January 6th).

Step 3: Get yourself invited to a typical family gathering (preferably not your own, it’s awkward enough taking everyone’s money).

Step 4: Then pay 15 euros to the person collecting your money.

Step 5: Do a lucky clap (or whatever luck ritual suits you).

Step 6: Eat Cake.

Step 7: If you find a bean in your cake (similar to the tradition of the Mardi Gras cake where if you find baby Jesus you get luck), you can win a portion of the money people paid to eat the cake. And with 22 people playing, you can win a good amount of money. I won 35 euros by just eating the cake.

Step 8: Gratefully accept the money, then go on to win more at Italian Bingo!

Step 9: Carefully avoid everyone’s eyes as you slink to the front door.

Step 10: Then tell everyone you know, that you just got paid to eat cake.

And that, my friends, is how you can earn money by eating cake.

April 13 Journal

I’d like to start this blog off with a little scientific observation.

People that are NOT Rotary Youth Exchange students CAN wear blazers with a number of pins on them. While it is rare, it is not an unheard of notion; and thus should not be treated as such.

This observation should be observed next time you get it in your mind to run though Venice’s streets after a poor-overweight British guy who just happens to have a collection of pins on his blazer.

What? Maybe I should start at the beginning, or summarize everything with a cleverly worded run-on-sentence. Yeah, the second one sounds more “me.”

Since my last blog; I’ve seen Italy, spent -what seems like hours- gazing at the artwork of the Sistine Chapel (which only made me want to go back to Epcot in Florida and ride Spaceship Earth; where Michelangelo is working on the ceiling), I’ve stood on the ancient ground of Pompeii, and looked upon the beautiful Verona where Shakespeare set his scene. I’ve had two gladiators attack my dad and sister, and then ask us to pay them for it. I’ve ate Pizza at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, before racing my sister to the top. Oh and don’t even get me started on gondolas of Venice, coin-throwing in Rome, the tour guide/girlfriend of David in Florence, or the lemons as big as my head in Sorrento. Even that doesn’t even cover the half of it.

I know what you’re thinking. How did you do all of that in the 8 weeks it took you to blog again?

The true answer is, I didn’t. That only took less than two weeks. As for the other six; that’s another story entirely.

12 Cities, 2 countries, in 12 days. That was our goal, seeing everything in Italy that my family and I had ever heard about or seen highlighted in the travel section of the newspaper. We started in my city, Cagliari- holler! Then we went on to the Amalfi Coast (including the beautiful cities of Sorrento, Positano, Pompeii, and Napoli), to the Eternal city of Roma and the close by Vatican City. Up to Florence where we got another dose of Michelangelo fever, and passed by a medieval city right out of the story books- called Orvieto. Then we continued our journey with tired feet to fair Verona where we “set the scene” by buying up postcards and gazing up at “Juliet’s balcony.” Then in our final attempt to “see everything” we jumped on a gondola in Venice, which then brings us to where I started this blog; chasing after the over-weight British guy who collects pins.

As for the rest of the six weeks, things have retained a certain degree of normal I thought only possible in America. I have a couple Italian friends, a couple American friends, a couple friends from everywhere else. I go to school, and stare at the teachers with blank faces – not because I don’t understand what they’re saying, just because I don’t get it. All this normalcy is broken only by the event of another traditional Sardinian festival where I get wheat thrown at my face for good luck, almost trampled by out of control horses, roped by a costumed “header”, and/or chased after by a “beast/invader.”

So it may not be that normal after all. A lot of people ask me if I love Italy (Sardinia) or America (Florida) more, and the answer one expects usually differs based on which country they’re from. The thing is though, I don’t know. They’re so different, and each special in their own way. Good for some things and terrible in others. I love both of them though, but comparing them is like comparing pasta to beef brisket. You like them both, but sometimes you’re more in the mood for Italian or vice versa.

Life is strange that way, and I’m trying as hard as I can to take full advantage of that.

Austin

June 12 Journal

This constant loop of saying Hello and Goodbye is about to begin again. As the world turns and time grows shorter and shorter until you can’t manage to hold on to it any longer. Then it flies away, like a little kid’s balloon, until it disappears behind the blinding light of the sun.

This year has changed me in so many ways that I probably don’t even understand all of them or even know what they are. I could chalk it up to age, but I haven’t even aged two years since I wrote my bio. So instead I’ll chalk it up to experience.

From the wind in my hair as I rushed though ancient streets on a moped, to the bathroom locks that stopped working just for me. To eating fresh pizza in front of the Tower of Pisa, to the shining sun and a mountain view greeting me every morning. To sharing cokes with Italian friends who have to yet again explain that I had mispronounced another word, to watching an Italian soccer game and screaming along with tons of other fans for a team we never cared about before. From the beautiful waves of Sardinia, to the Colosseums in Rome, to the art museums of Florence, the gondolas and sea breeze of Venice, and back to the port of Cagliari the City of Sun; I firmly believe I’ve done everything I wanted to do… all of which I didn’t expect to ever happen.

As I look back at my old journals each depicting my life at that moment (snide remarks aside), I wanta laugh and cry and jump for joy at the same time. And I can’t help but feeling like a kid in Kindergarten who is getting his favorite toy taken away because someone else wants to play with it and he has to share.

Back in January 09, Al asked us to write a bio. In it I said my name was Austin. That I was a girl who attended St. Edward’s School, was in grade 9. Was 14 years old and living in the Alcatraz of the Treasure Coast. Then at the end I said “A Presto!” which I said meant “See You Later!”

Now…not even 2 years later. Only two of those things are true. My name is Austin and I’m a girl. 16 years old, grade unknown, school unknown, home…unknown. We don’t even say “A Presto!” we say “A Dopo!” But even with the unknowns, I now truly believe I know who I am. Not just a mix of music, or a page in a journal, or a video editor, or someone who forgets half the things they have to tell you; like I wrote on that bio so long ago.

So let’s look back at that Wicked quote I used in that bio. “They say people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them. And we help them in return. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you I have been changed for Good.”

And because I’ve done this exchange, and met these amazing people, and shared these amazing laughs and experiences, and really lived. I have been changed for good. And yes, I don’t know if it’s for the better. But because I’ve done this, I’ve changed for good.

I hope you enjoyed my blogs this year as much as I enjoyed writing them and sharing my experiences however insignificant and bathroom related they might be- with you.

So for the last time (and everyone should be crying at this point), Arrivederci.

Austin Carroll

September 2010 – back in the US

So I’m walking down the hall or buying a sandwich or searching for my keys, and suddenly a person I haven’t seen in over a year is standing in front of me. Like a mind reader I already know the question they’re about to ask. I can already see it forming on their lips as their expression stays vacant, like they were about to ask me how my day was or what I had for breakfast. If I hadn’t heard it a million times already, I would have never guessed that they were about to ask me to summarize my whole other life into one easily transferrable word; but as always, that’s exactly what they did.

“How was Italy?”

In that one, four syllable long question; they manage to unknowingly question an entire county, an entire lifestyle, and an entirely different person than the one standing right in front of them. How am I supposed to answer that off-handed but loaded question? How am I supposed to summarize something so life-changing and difficult and beautiful into one elusive magical word?

After all, I know what they want- what they expect. They want a ‘good’, a ‘fantastic’, an ‘amazing’; but you see the fact is, Italy wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t fantastic or amazing or terrible or scary or any other horribly vague descriptive word I could fill in the blank with. Italy was real. Saying Italy was ‘good’ is just like saying you’re fine when you grandfather dies, it just isn’t true.

‘Good’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, and I’ve yet to find any words that can. I could spend hours trying to explain to you what riding though a medieval town on a moped is like. I could try to make you picture the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean Sea, or speak to you in Italian and just hope you understand how beautiful it is. I could stand here and dictate to you thousands of stories about my Italian friends and my many adventures of getting locked in European bathrooms, but I know it will never be enough. Unless you were there, unless you saw what I saw and felt what I felt; you’ll never truly understand why my year in Italy doesn’t fit neatly under your prejudged categories of good or bad.

If I caved in and answered ‘yes, Italy was good’; you would never know about the many times I cried myself to sleep or the times when I wanted nothing more than to go home. As much as people always tell me they can imagine how amazing it was, they can’t. Being there for a week on a cross country tour or reading about it in a travel guide isn’t the same as experiencing the culture. It isn’t the same as meeting and living with people whose names and faces you’ll never forget. It isn’t the same as falling in love with everything around you and then having everything you’ve built up ripped from you, as you look on powerless to stop it.

When you ask “how was Italy” a life time of memories comes to mind. I can remember my first word, my first friend, my first Italian coca-cola. I can remember the first time I swam in the sea, my first Sardinian festival, and the first time my classmates called me “una Italiana vera” which in English means a true Italian.

So to answer your question; Italy wasn’t good, but it was the greatest and most life-changing thing I’ve ever had the privileged to experience. And I know that wherever I am or wherever life takes me, I’ll always have a home on the beautiful island of Sardinia- a place that almost seems to be lost in time and will forever be in my heart.

 Austin Carroll

2009-10 Rotary Youth Exchange student from Vero Beach, Florida, USA to Calgiari, Sardinia, Italy

Bridget’s Bio

Bonjour! Hello! My name is Bridget, and I live in Tallahassee, Florida (north Florida). I am 16 years old, and will be 17 shortly before I leave for France. I live with my mom, two brothers, two cats, and new kitten. I currently attend Leon High School as a junior, although I hope to graduate this spring with the senior class.

My school is only a twenty minute walk from my home, so I walk to and from school nearly everyday. I couldn’t be happier with the school teachers and students, and I know they are excited for my upcoming exchange trip to France .

I’ve lived in Tallahassee my entire life, but I have been very fortunate to travel all over America and the entire Mexican border. I am very interested in the French culture, and started studying the language in 6th grade. I have had the same French teacher, Madame Clarke, for six years now and this has allowed me to excel in my understanding of the country. The day I found out Rotary was sponsoring me to go to France for 10 months was one of the happiest days of my life. J

In the little free time I do have, I enjoy spending time with my friends, playing the harp and traveling with my family. I rarely find something I don’t enjoy, so I like most everyone I meet, worldwide cuisine, and all types of music. I am very glad that my open-mindedness had allowed me to enjoy my studies of the world.

I’ve never been more excited for anything in my life! Living, breathing, sleeping, and learning in France will truly be one the best experiences of my life. I cannot thank Rotary enough for sponsoring me! I hope to make more lifelong friends than I can imagine, and learn more than I ever thought possible.

Until next time,

Bridget

 Bridget’s Journals

August 6 Pre-departure Journal

I have 20 days until my exchange. For the past 8 months, I KNEW I was leaving. I knew that when August 25th came around, I’d be leaving the life I just now finally understand. I have known this fact for quite some time now. So from 200 days, down to 20 days, my outlook is still the same: complete and utter denial.

I’ve prepared every day since Mr. DiPietro told me that my exchange to France was almost 100% going to happen. Everything seemed to be falling into place. I packed back in March, and my language skills are acceptable. The last part of my preparation, which I am now realizing is the hardest of all of it, is the mental preparation. I can stay in this wonderful pool of denial until I step off the plane, or probably even later, but I know that this will only hinder me from starting my exchange with a wonderful beginning. I know that if I wait until August 25th to realize I won’t see my mother, house, bed, or best friend for an entire year, it will keep me from absorbing this wonderful experience to the fullest.

I read the Exchange Student Survival Guide, spent nights reading up on exchange information and tips from culture websites, and read anything and everything Rotary Youth Exchange Florida was willing to give me…twice. But what I found to be the best help, of course, was the people who actually went through a year abroad in a foreign country. Rotexes- previous Rotary exchange students- are gold mines of information. I cannot thank Anna Breedlove and Mark Schmertmann enough for everything they told me. Although they spent their years in Belgium and Germany, the experience is generally always the same.

Six months ago, I thought all I needed to do was pack and perfect my French, and voila, I’d have a wonderful exchange year. But, after speaking with Anna, and reading the journals of current outbounds, I slowly discovered how unprepared I was. I thought the suitcases and currency transfer would be the hurdle to getting to France. Now, I know that these things were nothing compared to what’s going on in my head. I feel, for the most part, like a zombie. I’m stuck between two worlds- Half of me wants to stay in bed all day and think of what I am about to do, and my other half wants to soak up every last second I have in my hometown and see everyone one more time.

If there was a way, I would just appear in France. I wouldn’t face saying goodbye to everyone. Unfortunately, this is far from a possibility. So, every day, I make myself think about it. It’s like a daily exercise: envisioning getting on the plane in my little Tallahassee, and waiving to my mother. One day, this daydream won’t make me cry. But for now, I know I’m still not ready. I have 20 days to think of this and realize that a year is not a lifetime. That a year doesn’t mean I’m gone forever; that Rouen, France isn’t keeping me from the home I know and love, but giving me another.

At the beginning of the year, I thought that everyone should be required to have a year abroad before they graduate high school. I thought that if there was an economical way of accomplishing it, that an exchange year should be a replacement for the fourth year in high school. Everyone would be bilingual and have a better understanding of the world around them. Now, I see why this dream will never come to pass. I have never been tested this much. I knew that at times during this experience, most people would have quit. It was never an option for me, but it was a relaxing thought. Now, the most peaceful daydream I have is imagining myself setting my bags down in my new bedroom in Le Petit-Couronne, finally done with the preparation, and actually being there.

I would recommend that along with the guide books, Rotary blazer, and informative orientations, that each exchange student be assigned a psychologist. The emotions are unbelievable. Truly. Unless you’re living this, don’t pretend you get it. But I don’t think a psychologist would even help- I couldn’t fathom putting my feelings into words. Being a Rotary exchange student is better than most drugs I can imagine. I am more awake than ever, but I’m on cloud nine. No, not even that, I’m way above cloud nine. I’m looking down at cloud nine wondering why those people aren’t as happy as I am.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, well it also takes a village to make someone an exchange student. I’ve never been tested this much, and I don’t think I have ever tested my mother so much. Nor my friends, family, teachers, administrators…generally just everyone in my life. I have never asked so many questions, or asked for so many favors. Due to this, I know I will have a successful exchange year. I wouldn’t be letting myself down, or just wasting a year of my time, I would be throwing away everyone’s hard work. Now, I am indebted to nearly half of Tallahassee for some reason or another. Thank you Rotary for everything. From the bottom of my heart I cannot thank Mr. DiPietro, Al Kalter, and the rest of RYE Florida enough.

Merci, et a la prochaine fois, a bientot.

Bisou.

Bridget

September 9 Journal

It has been two weeks. Just two weeks. This seems impossible. It can’t have been just two weeks. Not because time moves slowly here, it actually seems to just slip away, but because so much has happened. I arrived in Paris, France at 7 am their time, sans sleep, and met my host parents. We drove for one hour from Charles de Gaulle airport, to my little suburb Le Petit Couronne just outside of Rouen. This place is truly what its photos show. I’ve never seen such a beautiful country. Looking out the car window, I was waiting for the beauty to end, and the REAL France, the one they don’t show in the pictures, to arise. It still hasn’t. Everything about this country continues to amaze me.

What I’ve learned:

How to flush the toilet.

Crazy’s crazy no matter what country.

Arabs are the lucky race chosen for discrimination.

High school never changes.

Children’s books are sometimes too complicated for me.

France is going through a baby-boom. And it’s literally raining babies here.

The cars here are pocket sized.

Missing your bus happens only when it’s raining…and windy.

A letter from home makes me unconditionally happy.

I live in Miami.

Being an exchange student excuses anything.

Speaking English is the most liberating feeling in the world.

The French don’t believe in salt unless in mounds.

A beautiful day at the beach means 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The French people shut themselves off from people they don’t know.

Small talk with someone next to you-unless you’ve been formally introduced- doesn’t exist.

Smiling at a stranger on the street doesn’t exist.

My Pride is a thing of the past.

A bar-be-cue here isn’t our bar-be-cues back home, y’all. That’s for sure.

School lunches here are considered fine dining in America.

I’m the American. I look it, I smell like it, I act like it, I smile like it, I hold my cutlery like it, I speak like it, I dress like it, and everyone knows it.

American football is a complicated curiosity to the French.

American tourists in Rouen make me giggle.

Street bums are hard to tell apart from the general public.

A tour of the local Prostitutes comes with trying your first French pastry.

Catholics here aren’t the same Catholics back home, in a less crazy kind of way.

My hair straightened will never be the same. Thank you, European wattage.

I am a toy here, something to be shown off, something for them to poke and prod, something for them to study – just as they are to me.

The French love an American accent.

Becoming friends with a café owner is a powerful thing. Free coffee truly does taste better.

Becoming enemies with a café owner is a scary thing. I can no longer enter one of the cafés in Rouen…whoops.

The men considered beaus here are a joke.

A dream in French isn’t much different.

A job considered minimal in the United States will get an entire family by here.

Students, bums, models, and doctors all use the city bus.

Everyone in France can quote Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly, but can’t pronounce my name.

Parisians are a different species of human.

France is its own world – and most Frenchmen haven’t wandered outside its boundaries, nor have a desire to.

Ignorance thrives here.

The French don’t talk about politics. They don’t talk about money. They talk about sex.

What I Need to Learn:

French.

Being the exchange student here makes me popular, different, a loser, the coolest kid in school, a freak, an outsider, powerful, useful, pathetic, interesting, fascinating, unique, uncomfortable, unusual, bizarre, a victim, a trophy, a burden, appreciated, forgotten, exhilarating, problematic, taxing, but never boring.

A journal of what I’ve learned would be quite long. A journal of what I’ve done here would be even longer. But a journal of how I’ve changed would be never ending. Just as my aptitude with the French language evolves every day, so do my opinions. What I consider a problem now isn’t the same. Being late, that’s fine. Missing my bus, that’s just dandy. Being called out in class for sitting incorrectly, I couldn’t be happier. It’s not apathy that allows such acceptance, it’s a transformation in pride. “My pride,” that’s gone. It disappeared the second I stepped off the plane in Paris and realized I was equivalent to an enfant in one of the biggest cities in the world. Now, I have a new pride. It is not the same as it was 14 days ago, one hour ago, and it won’t be the same pride 6 months from now. It’s growing and changing with me. I now find pride in who a person is; without the ability to communicate, WHO someone is conveys more than ever before.

Everything here is a test. A test of my ability to understand the language, to read a foreign map, of my host family’s patience, and of my appliances with the local electricity. I have never used a dictionary so much. I have never been so tired. And I have never been so happy.

Thank you, Mother, Rotary, and the wonderful United Airlines for giving me this opportunity and getting my bags here intact.

Gros bisou,

À bientôt,

Bridget

October 22 Journal

It wasn’t as simple as just choosing between the red and blue pill. But that’s basically what I did. I started this adventure one year ago, and I’m not gonna lie…I think I am just now realizing what I got myself into.

What had happened was…

It was early September 2008 and I was sitting in my Economics class diligently working as usual. Next thing I know I wake up in France wearing more clothes than I have ever thought possible, a head full of mixed English and French, a wallet with 4 different currencies all together totaling no more than 5 dollars, wondering how on Earth a visit to Leesburg, Florida and a stack of paperwork could have added up to this.

Well, two months into the year, I’m one inch taller and a case fit for Freud himself. The buzzing in my head from the continual French seems to be subsiding, and a quick glance at the Gros Horloge of Rouen is to check the time after school, not to stare in awe, camera in hand. Everything seems to be falling into a routine, just as they said it would. I no longer go to the wrong class and wait two hours to be told I’m in the room next door, and the smell of the Nutella factory just seems like something that should be there. The humming of the metro train sooths me now, for it means either the beginning of a daily adventure in a cheerleader-free school, or it proves I survived another day in the biggest city I’ve ever lived in.

My life, in one quick glance:

I wake up to a pitch black, generally wet, in my opinion, freezing village to the sound of an alarm on a phone I still don’t understand how to use. I brush my teeth- always remembering to be conservative with the tooth paste, because that just seems easier than finally having to translate the whole phrase “I need a new tube of toothpaste” to my host parents- with water that has two settings: searing and glacial. I make my way across the hallway, making sure to avoid the last step because it creeks. And when it creeks, a certain little 4 year old French boy wakes up. And there’s nothing quite like starting your day with a crying infant screaming in a foreign language.

I stand at the door, bracing myself for weather I thought only existed in Russia. I yell “Salut!” to my host family, who are most likely still giggling about the 7 layers I feel necessary for such temperatures, and start the quick ½ mile walk to the bus stop. The quick walk turns into a run, me cursing the whole way under my breath- that I can oh so clearly see, and me zooming past natives in shorts and tee shirts. I hop on the bus and it takes me to my metro station. Thirty minutes later, and 3 flights of stairs I come out into one of the most photographed cities in the world.

My school back home truly does seem like a scene from High School Musical compared to here. There’s no pom-poms, painted faces, school chants, decorated hallways, lockers, flags, mirrors, posters, bleachers, football field or cliques. School here has the same upbeat feeling, but in a study-hall kind of setting. Every girl is dressed to impress. Every boy is coiffed to the tee. The hallways are filled with LongChamp bags (for both men and women), high heels, dark wash jeans, and beautifully straightened hair. As of right now, the “flannel and cowboy boots” look is in. That’s one aspect of France I love- they currently hold to the highest fashion what my city finds fit for the local trailer-park.

Class begins with a lovely jingle, not the moaning bell I’m used to. I sit there with my English-French dictionary ready to translate any word I may be lucky to understand, and the native students begin writing meticulous cursive with their re-loadable fountain pens on ruler straight lines.

Although these kids may be in a spirit-less school, dressed in 500 dollar outfits, it’s not too different. In the end, high school is high school- with or without Zac Efron dancing up and down the bleachers. There’s the favored teachers, the toady teacher, the weird kid, the fat bitch, the girl everyone has a crush on, the hot guy every girl pretends to ignore, and the designated “smoking area” (but here it encompasses the entire outside of the school, and smoking breaks are between every class, side by side the professor).

Just as I seem to be adapting to the school and students, they seem to be getting used to me as well. The first few weeks, I was poked and prodded more than my Rotary blazer. Every day was like a conference, answering questions and explaining that yes, there is in fact lots of sun in Florida.

My courses at school include: French, a little bit more French, and then some more French but for the 5 foreigners, History and Geography, Social Sciences, English, and then a sports class- as of right now, we’re playing Rugby, and then it’s ice skating. After school, I visit the city, losing myself in the local library and free museums. I have yet to literally lose myself, but I can’t wait! That should be exciting in so many ways.

Once again, I take the wonderful public transportation home, and drink coffee at exactly 4:30 with my host parents. I play games with Valentin, my 4 year old brother, who I recently realized understands and speaks French at nearly the exact same level as me. We eat dinner- which is trust me, oh so French- and the daily routine starts over again. Finally having a routine is a blessing. Knowing what’s coming up, what’s most likely going to happen, and being able to mentally imagine a schedule for yourself makes this alternate world a little bit more like home.

So in two months, I think I’ve accomplished quite a bit. Not in the traditional since, but in the fact I’ve come from being a zombie-like baby too a communicating toddler. Maybe by Christmas, I’ll be on the mental playing field of a middle schooler.

This experience is more than I could have ever asked for. Thank you Mother, Rotary and the children’s section of the Rouen public library for giving me this opportunity and books I can understand.

Bisous,

Bridget

January 6 Journal

You’re given a situation here, and you’re told to run with it.

I know an exchange student in the middle of France who goes to a private Catholic school in a small town from 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Saturday. I on the other hand have on average 2 and a half hours of French school a day. I’d say that’s a win.

I know a girl in Lille who spent 6 days in the Alps skiing with her host family for the Christmas holidays. I spent my vacation on the German border opening presents. I’d say we both won.

Rotarians back home always talked about the “Rotary” smile, and they taught us when it was appropriate to plaster that sucker on. I can’t get that smile off, it just seems to be getting bigger ever day. That, I’d say is a win.

I have a host family that treats me like a daughter, I have a host family that I know in the future I will want to visit, and I have a host family that is 100% honest with me. That is the biggest win of my exchange so far. Having someone always at the house when I return from Rouen keeps me busy. They always have something for me to do. They talk to me like a 17 year old girl, not a foreigner who can’t get the past tense correct.

The Ferets have given me more than a “warm” welcome. They have given me a real family on the other side of the world. This is one of the best and biggest surprises of my exchange.

On the other hand, I live with a host family where my Rotary club president is also my host mother, I have a host family that tells me their problems, even when I have no desire or heart to know. I do not want to know that you are in debt, I do not want to know your marital issues and I do not want to see you fighting. But honestly, there’s not a lot I can do.

They always say your first host family is the one you’re the closest with. And I now see why. They are the one that welcomed you to the new culture and like a baby duckling that imprints on the first thing it sees, I have a feeling we exchange students do the same thing when it comes to seeing our host parents for the first time after stepping off the plane. Not only did I open up too quickly and willingly to my host parents, but they seemed to cling to me as well. The day before I arrived, their 17 year old blonde daughter left for exchange in Argentina.

When my 4 year old host brother kicks and shouts because he misses his big sister and turns to me yelling that it’s my fault – they always sit him down and tell him I’m not replacing her, I’m just here when she happens to be gone.

All of this combined has torn down any wall between me and the family. Any barrier of politeness and secrecy is long gone. This is definitely not a win.

This situation has taught me to keep my distance. I now know how important it is too keep the walls up. Rotary gave a seminar on everything, from how to give a speech in a foreign language, to ways of preventing weight gain during the exchange year. If I successfully become a Rotex, this is a lesson I am strongly going to emphasize. Not having a host “family” and having solely “hosts”, where it seems you use their bed and bathroom and interaction seems vacant, is just as bad as being too close.

I can’t help but write this journal with a smile. One of the main reasons I did this year was to see where I messed up, and where I succeeded. I really should have known better. But it’s like a good day at the beach: you always forget the sunscreen. You should have known better, it’s quite painful looking at your burned arms, but you can’t help but smile looking back on your lovely day spent in the sun.

I change host families in two weeks.

Thank you Mother, for 17 years of morals that keep me upright in more than one culture, Rotary for this oh so lovely adventure, and plug in heaters that show -10 degrees Celsius who’s boss.

Happy Holidays,

Bridget

February 17 Journal

I vow to never again judge a foreigner. Be it their accent, their stories of the “home-land” or their bizarre ways of acting, eating or sleeping, I will never again judge. I’ve been the foreigner for 6 months now, and that’s only half way. I didn’t realize until now just how much that meant.

Let’s go back a little ways…when my French wasn’t so good…

August-October:

At this point, I can look back and surely say that I was a noobie. But in the moment, it was awesome. It’s like being 4 years old with your pimped out motorcycle, and then when you look through the photo albums when you’re older and you realize you’re pooping yourself on a broken tri-cycle with a two different colored socks on. I still do, but back then only 4 little months ago, I loved it when people would ask me about Florida. “It’s always sunny there right??” I always smiled and gave the same answer. “In fact, no, sometimes there’s huge storms that last days and it rains profusely.” (All in French of course..) I just absolutely loved teaching people about Florida, it really made my day. Yeah America’s great, but educating the world on my home-state? What could be better?? It was seeing the unbelievably surprised look on people’s faces that made this specific question and answer session oh-so-satisfying.

…

I learned in the middle of October that I’d been saying the word “trumpets” instead of “thunderstorm.” Maybe in France it rains, but in Florida, the sunshine capital, it pours musical instruments.

August-January:

I can safely say, I’m cold. I left Charles de Gaulle airport at 7 am a late August morning, and it was a little bit nippy. That was 6 months ago. And it seems to get colder every succeeding day. Needless to say, I look like a marshmallow. I wear more clothes than I actually thought possible. You know you’re from Florida, when in the “mild Normandy climate” (according to Wikipedia online…) you wear more layers than you have fingers. It adds up quickly- tank tops, sweaters, cardigans, hoody, jacket, heavy winter jacket…wadded up newspaper- learned that trick from the local hobos. During these months, thanks to my four year old host brother, and winter wardrobe needs, my French vocabulary developed rapidly in the areas of clothes and toddler toys. I don’t think there went a day where I didn’t say “jacket.” Be it “I need to put my jacket on”, “oh it’s cold, where’s my jacket?”, or “It’s cold, good thing I have my jacket!” Cleary this was a very important vocabulary word for me in my new life in France. I was beaming- I was speaking French, I had my awesome jacket, and people would always tell me how utterly adorable I was.

…

I learned in January that I pronounced “jacket” the same as “sheep.”

Your faithful foreigner,

Bridget

Chelsea’s Bio

Konnichiwa! I’m Chelsea A. Neal, but my friends call me Hat. I am totally excited about going to Japan; it has been my dream to go there since the Pokemon era, about… ten to eleven years ago. I am a junior at Naples High School, home of the Golden Eagles.

I live with my mom, sister, and 6 cats. All my cats have been rescued from somewhere and they are more like us than anyone would think. My sister is a senior at Naples High and is aspiring to go to England. My mom works for D. Garret Construction Co. and for Maxwell’s Restaurant. Even between these jobs she has time to have fun with us.

I love music a ton, mainly listening to it, but I play a variety of instruments. I play the piano, harmonica, and a little bit of trumpet. I mainly love to try and play songs just by listening to them but if that doesn’t work I print out sheet music. I usually like to play anime theme music, like from Inuyasha, Naruto, Kingdom Hearts, Bleach, and a lot more.

What I love to do the most is to play Yugioh cards. Most of my closest friends play too, and together, we have a ball. We go to tournaments in Cape Coral, most of the time to play, trade, and mess around. In the future we all hope to open our own gaming store, but the details I won’t reveal. My friends are the greatest; they are always fun to be around even if we’re just lying around in the grass.

My life is really laid back; through the week it’s just school, friends on the weekend, then more school. School usually has me bogged down with work and with nary a break for rest. That’s why my weekends I devote to hanging out with my friends.

That about sums up my life; house, hobbies, and friends. I thank everyone that helped to get me to where I am. My parents for being so supportive, my friends for always having my back, and my city for being the most rocking place I know of. And to the Rotary for helping me to realize my dream.

 Chelsea’s Journals

August 24 Journal

Starting off, Japan is a wonderful country full of adventure around every corner big and small. I never experienced so much in a year back in America as I have in one month here.

The people I’ve met have all been so generous to me. From my host family consisting of Rotary Youth Exchange Officer, and also my host father, Shuji Kato, his wife Midori Kato and three daughters Natsuki, Tamaki, and Mizuki.

So many other people have truly helped me a lot and from different areas. To Rotary members Mr. Matsuda and Mr. Brian is my Principal and Co-homeroom teacher respectively. Plus my new international friends, Rotary exchanges Rhys from Kansas, Victor from France, and Karin from Mexico. All the Rotexes are very helpful as well, especially my good friend Chihiro who had just returned from her exchange in Florida and also Ryota who just came back from Minnesota. We are all good friends. At school the day I posted this, I met my class – there are only nine students including myself so this should be a fun and close group.

With every good adventure come some amazing places. First day as a group the Inbounds and Rotexes followed some Rotary members around through an open market. Every kind of fish you could imagine could be found there, including octopus, and squid, crabs of all different variety, plus slippery eels.

While Japan is great, in the city there is nothing like visiting a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temple. Lucky for me I have visited two different Shrines and Temples for many different reasons each time. The first shrine however was probably the most memorable. We inbounds were taken inside the shrine, and that is a very rare thing to be able to do, and were all blessed by the Shinto priests and their gods. My temple experiences were quite enjoyable as well. My first summer festival I went to a Buddhist temple and was honored by a group of dancers with an excellent present of pride.

The city of Sendai itself is a large adventure. I have gotten lost almost every time I enter the city, but finding two distinct locations make travel much easier.

One of these places is Ichiban Chou, the biggest mall I’ve ever seen. This mall is an outdoor mall but it stretches out across many of the major streets of Sendai, it would take about a half hour just to cross all of it. Especially during Tanabata festival. This festival is to celebrate the union of two stars who are parted by the Milky Way. As celebration all of Sendai is decorated with large paper decorations hanging from large bamboo poles in the middle of the walkways of Ichiban Chou while millions of people are walking through admiring the colorful and unique designs.

Another important place my school, Tokiwagi Gakuen. When typing this journal I had just come back from my first day of school. Such a wonderful campus with clean floors and warm smiles. I’m lucky enough to be right on time to see their school festival this weekend, which should be exciting.

Another great adventure within the adventure is the exploration of food. Food is so vast and colorful in Japan, not like the colorful ads of fast food restaurants. So interesting is their food, from octopus rolled up into deep battered dough, green rice with a hint of sugary flavor, and most importantly the many varieties of ramen. Not the ramen from a cup but genuine ramen straight from the cook.

That is it for my review of this past month’s adventure in Japan. I hope that everyone around the world reading this have a wonderful loads of happiness, luck, health, and adventure every day.

Until next time we meet

October 24 Journal

Hello everyone, welcome to this month’s update! How is everyone? I hope you’re all having some great adventures. I’ve had quite a few.

First thing was the three weeks of barbeques in a row. There was a barbeque for three Sundays straight. Quite fun, the first and second barbeques were at Kato-san’s house. At the first barbeque, I met my little sister Mizuki’s Assistant Language Teacher Topaz, who is from Jamaica, and her colleague, who is also an Assistant Language Teacher at Mizuki’s school, Renata from Barbados. The second barbeque I met some of Kato-san’s friends. One of them says hi to my dad! He is a fellow Rat of the Chinese zodiac.

Third barbeque was way north of the city of Sendai. We were surrounded by chestnut trees, which is an autumn favorite here. We all picked chestnuts and the women and children, plus the Rotary club Chairman, went to pick apples. People at the picnic were of course Kato-san and Tamaki, Mito-sensei an English teacher from school who helps me out a lot. My principal Mr. Matsura, I also met his wife, and most surprisingly I met someone from Italy, I forget exactly where in Italy but she is from the northern part of Italy.

I ate quite a lot at each barbeque and all were different styles and dishes. Most memorable food would be a special traditional autumn soup, scallops, oysters, octopus, and most regrettably pig intestines. Everything on this list was beyond awesome except the pig intestines. I’m not even going to describe why because just the name itself should sound too weird to be good.

Next interesting thing that happened, I have moved. Yes I have moved from the Kato’s house. I do miss the Kato’s but my new family is beyond nice. The new family are called Gushi and they consist of Tomokatsu (Papa), Minako (Mama), older sister Honoka (Hono), younger sister Wakana who goes to the same school as me, and 2 year old baby Kuryu (Ku-chan). They are tons of mega fun, although I moved in with them about 2 weeks ago it still feels new to me since I went on my school trip like right after moving.

And now here is the most exciting part of the update: Chelsea Neal’s Japanese School Trip to Kansai!!!!

Kansai is an area of Japan west of Tokyo. The cities I went to are Hiroshima, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara for 6 days and 5 nights. There were a total of 130 girls on the trip. We were all split into four major groups depending on our teacher and again split into smaller groups. My group consisted of five girls, Shiori and Yuka, who are the leaders of our bigger group, Hikaru, and Arisa. There was also Miho who would hang out with us whenever we had free time.

First was getting to Osaka airport. We all flew to the Osaka Itami airport from Sendai and when we took off and landed all the 130 girls on the trip started freaking out and screaming. I guess they’ve never been on a plane before haha.

When we got to the airport we took a bus to the train station where we were to ride a Shidensha! Or Bullet Train! When it came into the station I was able to take a picture of it so I’m happy. In the shidensha it is super comfortable, even though I had my backpack with me (instead of doing the smart thing and putting it in the truck with all the other girl’s wheelie bags) I had plenty of leg room.

So the the Shidensha went all the way to Hiroshima, from there we drove and took a boat to the Miyajima Shrine. Some of you may know it as the shrine with a giant gate out in the ocean. Although it was low tide that day so I saw it on land. We traveled around the island that the shrine was on and the whole entire island had tons of deer on it. The deer were just walking around sometimes following people. The tour guide said that if we want we were allowed to feed the deer paper.

The shrine itself is extremely massive; it took about a half hour to 45 minutes just to tour the whole thing. Although I didn’t get to get up close to the gate. Another part of the shrine is a large Pagoda; I took many pictures of it.

On the island there are numerous shops and funnily a lot of foreign tourists. Apparently the island’s special product are wooden rice paddles, they even have a giant rice paddle. So I bought a rice paddle… I may never use it since in America I don’t own a rice cooker.

After the island we took a yacht, yes, 130 girls all on a yacht, to our hotel the Grand Prince Hotel Hiroshima. Such a strange hotel, in the lobby there is a flat marble like surface that during the day water flows over it with a church like walkway (for weddings I suppose) and what I believe to be Jesus riding a Dolphin behind a podium.

The rooms were huge and had the most comfortable beds in all of foreverdom. And at dinner… I felt like I was at Hogwarts in the great hall. Don’t laugh – I mean it! We were all seated at four tables separated by our groups (I hope I was in Gryffindor) and food kept magically appearing on the tables when we were eating. Well, magically is an exaggeration, more like the butlers kept bringing out different dishes. There were these awesome potatoes that tasted like Alfredo pasta, I wish there would have been some shrimp with it.

Next day we went to the Hiroshima memorial peace park, so much sad stories and pictures I dare not put them up. Although the experience was a great one.

After that we went to eat a special Kansai specialty called Okinomiyaki. It is basically noodles plus pretty much anything with over easy eggs as the covering with a very special sauce, it was very delicious.

Then we went to Kobe where there is an area that is designed like the olden days of Japan. In it we went to an art gallery that had a bunch of paintings by famous artists such as Monet, and Renoir. After the gallery we all walked around the street, fed the koi fish and my group went to a tea house and ate green tea ice cream.

Next we went to the famous Kobe Bay where we went on a dinner cruise around Kobe Bay. So much good food it was awesome. After everyone ate we went on top of the deck and everyone was making references to Titanic.

Next day, we went to see a play. The theater is called Takarazuka and this theater is very famous for its very melodramatic performances, lavish costumes, and most importantly, all the actors are women. Yes no male actors and all the women doing male roles did extraordinary jobs at their roles, so well sometimes I got confused and thought they were guys. This play was the most special one, for one of their top leading actresses was retiring (by now is retried) so she took the starring role. There were actually two separate performances separated by a lunch break. The first performance was a drama about a pianist name Alister who almost died playing piano and so gave it up, ended up joining a new friend named Christopher as an Antique dealer, with squabbles with gang members along the way. The second was a stage show called Heat on Beat where many different music types were explored in a very flashy manner. At the end all of the girl actresses and the two lead boy actresses came out in very feathery attire. The lead who was retiring was in the most feathery; with a large white peacock like tail and many feathery accessories (Peta would have a fit).

After that we went to a section of Kobe where long ago western foreigners built magnificent houses. The area is called the Old Foreigners Market. And close to the major section where there are many old buildings to visit, my group went to a nearby Teddy Bear Museum. Yes, a Teddy Bear Museum. The museum owner is a very intelligent woman who is an English teacher. Here is how good she is, all the English teachers in Osaka city once a year all go to her to learn English, and she helps with contracts in between countries. Remarkable.

Then we went all the way to the Universal Studios Japan Port Hotel. Right next to the park. We went to eat at the Chinese food buffet. Again, lots of food.

Then the next day we went to Universal Studios Japan! To tell you the truth it wasn’t as much fun for me, well I don’t ride roller coasters so I waited while my group (which was on that day moment Hikaru, Arisa, and Miho). Although I rode on both the Jaws ride and the Spiderman ride. The Jaws ride was hilarious; the boat driver was an amazingly funny actor. But the Spiderman ride kind of freaked me out. It was a 3D ride where you drive around a bit, no rollercoaster like drops but there was a ton of spinning and getting freaked out by the villains. After that we went shopping, I only got one thing though (saving money) but I can’t tell you what it is, it’s a present for a friend who reads this update.

After the park we traveled straight to our hotel in Kyoto.

Then FREE DAY IN KYOTO!

Kyoto was fun; we went to this gold temple (although the gold part was being repaired) where there was this love stone, it is said that whoever walks safely with their eyes closed from one stone to the other something super special awesome will happen with their love life. If you fail it will be a long time till you experience love. I did the test just so I could test how well I could do it and I passed. I don’t think anything will happen though.

After the temple my group on that day (Shiori, Yuka, and two friends from a different group) wanted to hang out just them, so I got to hang out with the sensei’s rest of the day. We went to a restaurant where most of the dishes are tofu of some sort, although there was this mountain potato gruel type stuff that tasted wonderful on rice. Then we went to a special park. This park is actually a studio lot used by one of the biggest TV show companies, Toei Studios, where they shoot dramas. What kind of dramas? Awesome samurai and ninja old school fighting dramas! The park was amazing, all the buildings were in the old style of ancient Kyoto and I met a samurai and a ninja! I also took part in a shuriken (ninja throwing stars) throwing game and won a Harisen, a stage prop that looks like a fan frequently used for hitting people (my friends better run hehe). I also bought my own shuriken which I’ll be making into a necklace… I really hope when I get home that I won’t be questioned as a terrorist or something.

Well that’s really all of Kyoto. So on to the last day in Nara.

It was actually pretty boring, great places but boring. Nara Park like at the Miyajima shrine had a ton of deer, including lots of baby deer. We saw the giant Buddha statue in the largest Buddhist temple. After that we went to another temple which (sadly) completely bored me because I couldn’t take any pictures of the statues and almost none of the buildings.

Overall though my trip was a massive amount of fun and a great experience, now I’m at home finally resting. Wondering what my next great adventure will be.

I must make a big shout out. HI ELAINE WELCOME HOME!

Today my sister Elaine has come back from her three months in Marines Boot Camp and I’m happy to hear she’s in one piece, I hope to talk with her on skype, make sure if you have at least my mother’s email give her a hello. I’d give you Elaine’s email myself, but truthfully she never has given it to me.

Until next month Sayonara! And have a Happy Halloween!

November 24th Journal

When I got back from my trip, all of my classmates of international 2nd year went to America on their exchange and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. So instead of just me by myself in the 2nd year class, the teachers placed me in my little sister’s class, the 1st year international class!

I forgot to mention this about my school, but there are actually two separate buildings, an old building and a new building. The old building has almost all of the 1st years and 2nd years, and the new building has all the third years, 1st and 2nd year music class, and 2nd year classes 6, 7, 8, and international. So when I transferred to my sister’s class I had to go to the other building. Not much of a difference though, all chalkboards in all the classes.

The homeroom teachers for the first years are Alex the Canadian, and another English teacher Mrs. Miyuki. Mrs. Miyuki is a superbly nice person and fun too. The students were all fun to hang out with too. But, my past theory about international students getting to have no math is now proven wrong.

New class, new schedule, not much difference, except only one type of Japanese class, Japanese history switched to World History (very fun since I understand world history), and every day I had a math class. Unlike other classes where you stay in the same class and the teachers come to your class, we went to a different class. The teachers still had to come to us though. Either way I still was very confused in math class. Thought I’d understand it since, hey it’s the language of math, but no I never understood math language either.

The first exciting event to happen though was of course HALLOWEEN! On the Wednesday before Halloween we had just come back from math for our long homeroom to see the class covered with Halloween decorations. Alex’s favorite holiday is Halloween so he asked his family back at home to send him decorations, and for long homeroom we all helped to decorate the room.

But then Friday, day before Halloween, we had to move the decorations to the 2nd year international classroom because not only was it Halloween, it was also the open house for the school to try and get middle schoolers to come to our school next year.

On Halloween I had to go to the school to help everyone out, we played some Halloween games with the middle school students that came and gave reports on the awesomeness that is Tokiwagi exchange program. Not much else happened that day so now onto the month of November!

Throughout this month I’ve been introduced to many members of the Gushi family, and they are all tons of fun. There is Grandma (Obaasan), Ki-chan (Mama’s sister), Ryusei (Ki-chan’s 7 year old son), Yasai Obasan (Mama’s aunt who grows vegetables=yasai), and Chi-chan (Mama’s cousin).

That next Tuesday the 3rd was a Japanese culture day! And so Monday night Papa, Mama, Waka, Hono, Ku-chan, Ryusei, and I went to a hot spring. If you don’t know what a hot spring is I’ll explain. A hot spring, or in Japanese, onsen, is an open air bathhouse that is commonly near a volcano or other area of warm activity that naturally heats up the water for a refreshing experience. It was a separated bath, so girls to one side, boys to the other, except Ku-chan, he doesn’t like to be away from Mama.

Next day on culture day Obaasan, Ki-chan, and Ryusei all came over and we had a big dinner, it was very fun.

On that next Friday I returned to my regular 2nd year international class. It was great to have them back but I will miss the fun of the younger class. But in one class or the other it didn’t make much of a difference, because everyone in the school was preparing for the midterm exam, which when I’m typing this the first day of exams have been completed. I’m actually not taking exams because 1. I wasn’t here for the first semester of classes so I would not know of that material, and 2. I will be taking a test to test my current level of Japanese, mainly with Kanji.

The next exciting thing that happened was about two weeks later. Alex and Miyuki-sensei asked me to go with them to a middle school a little ways off to the north to talk to some middle school students and get them to come to our school. The middle schoolers were really fun, we played some games with them and taught them a little English. We only taught two classes but kids would stop Alex and I to try and practice their English. Their English was really good too. In one game they had to write words on the board that began with the last words last letter and they used words I wouldn’t see being taught and remembered using, like mode. And many of them spelled orange right which is hard because here orange is pronounced o-ren-ji.

Also, Christmas is just around the corner, and even though not even 1% of the Japanese people are Christian, Christmas is still very much celebrated. But, as Brian-sensei from Ireland told me, unlike in America the sales don’t happen till after New Years. There is this tradition here in Sendai that during these sales a lot of the shops sell bags of goods that, for example, cost $50 but what is inside the bag is a bundle of goods worth about $150. I might try to find a video game shop or any other shop and try to get one. It is all a part of embracing the culture right?

There was also this holiday back on the 7th called Shichi-go-san which means 7-5-3. It is the day where boys and girls, girls of 7 and 3 and boys of 5, go to Japanese shrines to get blessed. Mama, Ku-chan, and I went to see the festivities at the biggest shrine in the area and Mama told me about the gods that lived there. Afterwards I started studying more about these gods and other gods in the area.

The shrine is called Shiogama Shrine in Shiogama city. The god who rules there is named Shiogama, of course, which means Salt Kiln in Japanese. Shiogama is a very large god who rules over the ocean nearby to Shiogama city. He is also the god of successful childbirth, matchmaking, and of luck in financial business. He also happens to have a small shrine in Sendai that I pass by on my way to school so I always stop to say good morning.

Next two gods are Shiogama’s subordinates, Shiwahiko (Will Wave), and Okama (Kiln). Shiwahiko is also a god of the ocean, but just the ocean, he lives at the same big shrine as Shiogama. Okama is the god of salt; he is very small and lives nearby Shiogama but not in the main shrine.

There’s also this god that I refer to as Sanko, because I do not know his name. He lives at the Shiogama’s small shrine in Sendai. I just noticed him today so tomorrow I’ll read about him and see what he does and tell you about him.

Last god is my current awesome favorite. His name is Gongoro Kagemasa. He is the closest god to my house living at Kamakura Shrine right next to the station I go to. It is a very small shrine, looking very much like a tool shed. At the shrine there are these three stray cats, a mother and two kittens, they are so cute! But I’m not sure if I should report them to someone or what, but I think they are happy where they are. Anyway, Gongoro really isn’t a god but a samurai who is forever famous for his brave accomplishments in battle. So brave, that when he died the people of the city he lived in, which is much farther south than where I am, built a shrine for him. The shrine here is again, just a small shrine, but with the same importance as his larger shrine.

That’s about all the exciting things that happened. Well until next time …

To the Americans, Happy Thanksgiving!

To all the other countries, Happy Holidays.

And to everyone, I miss you and wish you all the luck, health, and happiness in the world.

Love always,

Chelsea Neal

a.k.a. Keeping Many People Happy

December 24th Journal

The first thing to happen in October was the Rotary Club Annual Picnic. We drove a long ways up north to what I believe to be on top of some large hill or small mountain.

We were in a small clearing surrounded by chestnut trees (yes from the Christmas song). The women and children including me were able to pick apples and afterwards everyone enjoyed a big feast of barbeque meat and veggies. After eating, we all went and picked some chestnuts, very difficult, for your hands keep getting prickled with thorns.

A few days after the picnic I had to move to my 2nd host family called the Gushi family. Although it didn’t feel like that’s when I moved since two days after that I went on my school trip to Kansai.

My school trip was a 6 day 5 night trip to the cities of Hiroshima, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara. The first day we went to Miyajima Island which is right off the coast of Hiroshima. The island is not only famous for the gate on the water but also for its great number of deer, and rice paddles.

Second day we went to the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, there were many sad places in the park. The thing that impacted me the most though was in the memorial museum was on one of the first walls was a message saying,

“A dragonfly flitted in front of me

And stopped on a fence.

I stood up, took my cap in my hands,

And was about to catch the dragon fly

When…”

It shows that before the bomb this was a regular day just like any other.

After that and some okonomyaki, we all went to the small city of Kurashiki to visit an art museum and explore the old fashioned street. Then a long drive to Kobe to sail on the bay in a dinner buffet cruise.

Next day we went to see a special showing of a Takarazuka play, which is a theater troop made entirely of women. We ate lunch there, then departed for the old foreigners’ market, where one could find many buildings from when European settlers built themselves homes. Some buildings were turned into museums, including a teddy bear museum. After that we went to Universal Studios Japan to settle into our hotel and eat at a Chinese buffet.

The next day was the all day adventure through Universal Studios Japan. I explored pretty much everywhere and rode on the Jaws and Spiderman rides. Both were a very fun experience to ride on.

The free day in Kyoto the next day was my favorite; my group went to the golden temple although the golden part was being reconstructed. Then I went to a studio lot park where Toei studios films Japanese war dramas among other things.

Last day we went to Nara to visit Nara Park, which had many deer, and two Buddhist temples. One had the large Nara Buddha inside it, and the other wouldn’t allow pictures.

When I got back from my trip my classmates of 2nd year international were in America on a short school trip. So until they returned I stayed in the 1st International class with my new host sister Wakana. In that class I had to undergo math, world history, and home economics.

But we all got to celebrate Halloween since Alex-sensei is the homeroom teacher. So Alex brought in some decorations and during the middle school open house played some fun Halloween games with the middle school student that was interested in joining Tokiwagi.

My 2nd host family was very kind to me for the two months I lived there. With my host mother, sisters, little brother Ku-chan, cousin Ryu, and many other relatives I explored much of the culture of Japan. I believe 3 times I was able to go to a hot spring with my family.

And my host mother took Ku-chan and I to a large shrine in Shiogama city, one of the three great sites in Japan, and also took Aunt Ki-chan and Ryu along to another shrine.

The seasons in Japan are really beautiful, from the autumn leaves to the cheerful feelings of Christmas. I love how you can celebrate Christmas without actually being Christian.

Near the start of December and the end of my stay with my 2nd host family I went on a trip with fellow Rotary inbounds, Rhys, Karen, and Victor, to pretty much share our culture with some college students. In the middle of the first day Sato-san took us to a large famous temple that had a golden hall used to protect ancestors.

We had an amazing time; the hotel had an onsen, an ice skating rink, a small playground, and most awesomely, a golf course. Most of the above we all did with the college students, but Rhys, Karen, and I all found the golf game and found it to be quite fun, then later on we got Victor to play too.

After that fun filled three days I returned home and almost immediately was switched to my 3rd host family. So far in this new house I’ve had experienced great fun although I’ve only been with this family for almost 2 weeks.

I went to a soccer game with my younger host sister, who happens to be going to Oklahoma for a short term Rotary youth exchange. My family also took me out to the Hikari no Pageant, Pageant of Light. An annual celebration here in Sendai. All the trees were lit, one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.

And just yesterday I learned how to make mochi, mashed rice, it is supremely easy and really fun. It’s healthy for you too.

Lastly I am happy to say that it started snowing here in Japan. I haven’t seen snow for over five years so I’m really happy to be able to experience the warm feeling you get when you see snow.

And the immense amount of fun. Before our school went to winter break we all in my class messed around outside on the balcony and in the classroom throwing snowballs at each other.

And that is the end of my update. One wise word and a bit of exciting news you all may have not realized yet.

I’m at the half way point of my journey here; I’ve spent exactly five months here in Japan and according to what the Florida Youth Exchange heads have told me I have five more to go.

My advice is, have an adventure everyday no matter how small. You’ll be glad you did.

I’m going to end this now.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year of the Tiger

Loving everyone always and forever,

Chelsea Neal

a.k.a Hat

Keeping Many People Happy

P.S. instead of uploading the pictures like usual, I made a slide show of pictures from my trip, starting from where I left off in the October update. Here is the link to the video: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6657017/17291620 

March 24 Journal

Hello everyone! And welcome to the March Monthly Update. I’m sorry that there was no update last month, I had quite a lot on my plate and afterwards had to rest for quite a bit, thank goodness we had some holiday time here in Japan.

So I’ll start off with all the excitement of February. First in school there was a chorus contest where we had to sing 2 songs, a pre-chosen song and a song of our class’s choice. This contest was actually supposed to be in December but so many students caught the influenza that the contest had to be postponed. So after months of practice and lunch time nap deprivation the chorus contest was a great success. There were many great vocals including one of a well known Japanese song called Yell by Ikimonogakari or if you can read this on your computer いきものがかり. My class didn’t place but we got an honorable mention because our class was the only that both songs were played on the piano by the same person (since we only have 11 people in the class).

And right after that a sports contest was announced, this involved all the 2nd years competing in dodge ball, volleyball, and basketball. We didn’t train for this as much for we were on a crunch for time with studying for exams so when the game competition day came we did kind of bad. But we had tons of fun anyway. It was interesting watching the teachers vs. students in volleyball and basketball. My principal Matsura-sensei even played basketball, before game he was showing off by getting constant 3 pointers.

All of the school contests now are over and done with and all the students were busy studying for exams… except me. I had a Rotary club Japanese speech contest. Prior to these other contests and a little afterwards I studied and memorized my speech to my best ability, mid way having to completely change my speech. Day of I was really nervous as I get extremely uncomfortable with going on stages. Yes, I know that I’m known for my acting skills by some of you but behind the scenes I tremble in my boots. The worst part was though I was the first person to make my speech. So I said my speech, I bet poorly and when on a crunch for time superbly improvised, a ways into the contest after my friend Karen’s speech I had to leave early. There was a tsunami coming and my host grandma, who happened to come and watch, had to go evacuate her house. So you know, everyone and everything is ok, there was no damage done to relatives houses. Afterwards I asked Karen about what went on with the contest and someone from South Korea had won the contest.

During all this the 3rd years at school had all taken their exams and after the speech contest was their graduation ceremony. There was a going away performance some time before that and all the teachers put on a couple of hilarious performances, I wish I could have taken pictures but I don’t think I was allowed to. They even did a Michael Jackson “Guess that ghost teacher” kind of performance. There were two teachers starring as Michael Jackson and everyone was like ‘who’s that second Michael Jackson’ but… it was so obviously Matsura-sensei. I’m surprised that everyone else was surprised. So at the actual ceremony many tears were shed as the 2nd and 1st years had to say goodbye to their mentors. I even cried, because there was this one moment when all the third years all together thank they’re mothers and fathers and home room teachers and it was just so sweet how they all seriously were going to miss their school and I know that will never EVER happen in an American school… ever.

And so the tiresome month of February came to an end. Next was the very interesting month of March.

The 2nd and 1st years took their exams as I kind of chilled and worked on Florida Virtual School stuff. After all that we got school off although it wasn’t technically spring break yet. It was mostly just relaxing getting work done but two very important events happened within this time.

First on the 14th was the anniversary of the death of my host mother’s father, so some relatives got together to mourn and properly place him in the Buddhist temple’s graveyard. Day before though I went with my host sisters, little brother, aunt Ki-chan and her son Ryu, Grandma, and two uncles, Yoshi and Hide, went to a bowling alley. It was great amounts of fun, especially seeing the two brothers battle it out. Uncle Yoshi is from Okinawa and had just gotten here, a very fun person (all the beer in your fridge will be gone by the time he leaves) he’s the type of uncle that likes to spoil people so Ryu somehow coaxed him into buying him a DSi since he liked playing with mine so much. After bowling we went to Mama’s job to eat (for free I think) until Mama got off work. Papa joined us there too, he had just come all the way from Gunma-ken (way down south of Miyagi-ken) to come and visit.

Anyways with the funeral we all wore black (no not kimonos sorry) and went into the temple to pray and offer incenses. After that we all went to Grandma’s house, which happened to be a bar, and we all ate snacks, watched TV, and talked about various things. Later that night we went to a special restaurant where you cook the food you order in front of you. For the first time I was able to try Sendai’s most well known food… cow tongue! It was actually really delicious to my surprise though quite hard to chew. There were all sorts of other tasty cow parts too which I don’t know from where they were from. But I’ll probably not eat any of these again, especially once I get back to the states where we lack such exotic tastes.

And thus ended the interesting funeral day. But the next week was another similar and interesting adventure.

I went with my host mother and host grandmother, plus little brother Ku-chan of course, we went to the temple where the ceremony from last time was to put up fresh flowers and offer incenses again. But the most interesting was that we went to visit a, to me, new relative. From my perspective I was thinking, huh this is an interesting house I wonder why we’re here. Living there was a woman in a wheel chair named Kozue who is my host mother’s cousin, she takes care of the true owner of the house. Her name is Tomeno, she is my host grandmother’s grandmother at the age of 97 or 98. I was just simply amazed by not only the fact that I was meeting probably the oldest member of the family but that, though she was bed stricken, was still very much alive and well. Shows how much a family can care for each other. Right after we left that house some more relatives had just gotten there as well.

And lastly today was the last official day of school, we went to school just to have our closing ceremony and say goodbye to each other for students will switch classes and I may actually have to be in the 2nd year international course one more time instead of advancing to the 3rd year. This day was interesting, first I was actually able to understand my principal’s speech, which I think was the first time I could understand a whole speech spoken in normal speed. I also was able to sing almost my entire school anthem with everyone. In homeroom, our last homeroom, we had fun just hanging out taking pictures, we said our goodbyes to our homeroom teachers and that was that.

So now I just await my next adventure, which would be Spring Camp. I will be going with fellow foreign exchange students Rhys, Karen, and Victor to Yamagata-ken to help new future outbounds to get ready for their exchange trip. My host sister Wakana will be getting ready to go to Brazil, very exciting.

In other news I will be moving again for the 5th time to my 4th host family although I only have 2 months left in Japan. I start my return home on the 27th of May, approved by all Rotarians that needed to approve it.

It’s really coming down to the wire now; the next update will probably be the last one. So till then, I wish ever one all the best luck and happiness in the world.

From World Traveler,

Chelsea Neal

Keeping Many People Happy

April 24 Journal

Hello everyone around the world. Welcome to the April Edition of the monthly update! This month started the ever so famous spring of Japan. Only just a few days ago the Sakura cherry blossom trees began to bloom all over Sendai. Though this spring is by far the coldest I’ve ever experienced at 44 degrees everyday and occasional rain showers.

There was lots of goings on with the Rotary Club this month. First up was the Spring Camp that I had mentioned last update. This was a meeting and training camp very much similar to the camps that I had went to before leaving for Japan. It was in Yamagata prefecture which is directly west of my prefecture Miyagi. Not just my District but another Rotary District was there.

There were many Rotarians but also some new exchange student friends plus some local assistant language teachers. The other inbounds were all very fun to hang out with, there is Travis from Canada an interesting guy, and considering this meeting was right after the Winter Olympics we had plenty to talk about, Michelle another American this time from Oregon, she loves to listen to music and sing karaoke, and Manon from France a well cultured girl for sure very polite and loves the hot springs. The new students going abroad included my host sister Wakana who is going to Brazil, a boy from my district named Shinji who is going to Minnesota, another girl named Wakana going to Ohio, and 3 more girls one going to Mexico, one to France, and another to Oregon. And lastly the ALT’s all were very fun and I wish I could have talked with them more. There were two English guys, 2 girls from New Zealand and 1 girl from California. And there were many new Rotexs that went all over, most all were girls but a significant few were guys. Including Stitch! Yes his name is Stitch he went to America.

So at the camp we pretty much just helped the future outbounds with their English/French/Spanish/ Portuguese and had fun with doing it through different “What do you do?” scenarios like a cafeteria and an airport. It was all around fun, though I was extremely tired the whole weekend for some reason I still managed to stay active. Although we did all stay up till way late one night, Victor and I were the only ones I think that got any sleep and that was at like 3 in the morning.

Now onto the next event, the District 2520 Gala Event Special! First thing after lunch me and my host sister Wakana plus a couple more Tokiwagi students went to help hold up some signboards showing all the Rotary members from all of the clubs in the entire district in two whole prefectures where a meeting was being held. Then afterwards we exchange students and some Rotex went onto a huge stage (on the 6th floor of a hotel) and Kato-san, my first host father and chairman of the Rotary Youth Exchange over here, and Rhys, exchange student from Kansas, made a small speech about the program. Then all of us Rotex and exchange students plus Wakana and Shinji went to Pirikura (Japanese arcade’s special photo booth) and a café to hang out. Then some time later we returned to a different hotel. This hotel was filled with tons of elaborate paintings and statues from all over the world; I could barely keep myself from jumping around from all the culture around me. But the “piece de resistance” on the 5th floor we enter a large room. Do you know of when you watch a movie and you see all the rich people gathered in a large hall and they’re all eating from a tremendously large buffet and drinking expensive wine and beer? That’s where I was – most amazing spread of people and food in my life. In all honesty I think I almost passed out there were just so many people. But I got through it, had some educational conversations with a few of the Rotarians including one Rotarian from Iwate who loves to go to movies, we had tons to talk about and a Chinese man who I know from my own club. Probably never again will I be able to be in such an awesome gala event like that but the memory is with me forever (but no pictures, my camera died).

The last Rotary event of the month, I went to an Ohanami or Sakura viewing party, this event was all districts as well but only a few representatives from each district. Among the people from my district were Kato-san, Shiromatsu-san president of my club and a famous photographer. This event was held at Shiromatsu-san’s Shiromatsu snacks factory, I can’t believe I didn’t realize the free snacks I won at Christmas bingo came from the president. even though there technically was no Sakura, the party was really an excuse just to drink and have fun (don’t worry I didn’t drink, scout’s honor). The party was great I was given a small tour of the two Shrines that were there, one’s name is Shrio-Kitsune and the other was (something)-Matsu. Also Shiromatsu-san’s older brother Ichiro Shiromatsu decided to plan a big birthday party for me May 2nd, I tried to deny politely but they insisted, especially Kato-san. Though this will be awesome, because my sister will be coming to visit then from Okinawa.

This month I also went to the local zoo. There were many sorts of animals including Red Pandas, Polar Bears and my favorite a Tanuki, or falsely known as a Korean dog. I went with my host mom, host brother, mom’s sister, and nephew Ryu. It was my little brother’s first visit to the zoo and he had quite a lot of fun at the goat area where some zoo keepers gave kids leaves so they could feed the goats.

This month also started my days as a 3rd year in high school. So now I’m a senior in both America and Japan. My classmates are the same except one of them Ayaka was switched to a different room. But luckily she still comes to eat with us and is in all our P.E. classes. Also we have new homeroom teachers, Kuroda-sensei also our English reading teacher and Kishi-sensei our Global Understanding teacher. Though I only have a month left here I will make the most of it.

If you don’t already know I’m scheduled to return to America on May 27th, I still have a few more great adventures ahead of me during this trip.

This month has taught me a great deal. That no matter who we are or where we come from, differences never matter when we all come together to party and socialize. And even if you may never see someone again every person you meet is important and for whatever reason you should welcome the reason with open arms and a perceptive mind.

One last thing, I have a new name now and it is very fitting with this new spring season. Here in Japan my name Chelsea is pronounced Cherushi. Most people call me Cheru-chan but some call me Cheri-chan (-chan is a suffix used with young girls and small children). Cheri sounds like Cherry and Cherry Blossom is Sakura. Plus Sea is Umi. So my newest name is Sakura-Umi, Sea of Cherry Blossoms. I like this name – it gives me many bounds of happiness.

I leave you now with this. The Sakura though beautiful pink and bright will only stay for a fleeting moment, and so does the beautiful season of spring that breaks the coldness of winter. But never let the end of this season and the falling petals make you lose your smile, keep the warm spring of happiness within your heart and soul, and like the proud Sakura tree bloom and brighten for all the world to see. And perhaps through the warm sun of your spring smile you may let another heart’s spring bloom bright.

Hope everyone has a wonderful spring and all the luck this season has to bring.

From,

Chelsea Neal

Sakura-Umi

Keeping Many People Happy

Conor’s Bio

Hello,

My name is Conor Doherty and as you may have heard, I am going to Sweden! A couple of years ago, my family hosted two exchange students. One was from Finland so I had had heard about Scandinavia and I figured that would be a cool place to go. My sister and brother were also exchange students, Makena went to Brazil and Liam went to Switzerland. If it wasn’t for them, I would not be in this situation right now. I have heard millions of stories about their exchange years and how they had such a good time and that their years abroad had changed their lives, so I decided to uphold the new “family tradition” and go abroad myself. The topic of exchange always came up when my siblings were abroad so I had a lot of time to think about it, but finally decided that it would be best for me to go. The application process was difficult and the interviews were even harder (a lot harder!), but it was all worth it. The orientations are coming up soon as well, so I am excited about officially being a Rotary Youth Exchange Student.

I am currently a sophomore at Buchholz High School and although I am only 15 years old, I feel like I am ready to venture pretty far from the nest and become more independent, more responsible, and more intelligent. I am hoping that my year abroad shapes me into a better person the way my family has for the last 15 years. I think that having three siblings has made me the person I am and I think that being abroad will also change me, hopefully for the good. I am really looking forward to learning another language and to my year away from home, but I am most excited to see myself develop and change as the experiences and the culture are integrated into my life.

Thanks Rotary, for making this possible for me!

Conor’s Journals

August 29 Journal

I am not much for introductions, so I will just jump right in. On August 6th (my brother’s birthday), we set off to Jacksonville Airport from Gainesville. The whole way to the airport, I was just trying to keep my mind off of the point of the trip. Maybe I was scared, maybe just nervous, most likely both. When we arrived at the airport, I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be, so that was a good start. It was at the security checkpoint, at which I had to see my family for the last time for a year, that I started to feel the adrenaline. I hugged my family goodbye, said happy birthday to my brother, and walked away without looking back.

The airports were not too bad. I had never flown before, so this was my first airplane/airport experience. I found my gate fine and I didn’t have any problems. The last thing I did in America was in the Detroit airport, I bought a small fry from McDonalds (a sentimental moment). I almost had a bad experience in the Amsterdam airport. I could not find my flight on the sign so I went to the gate for a flight headed to Göteborg, but after a while I heard a voice on the intercom saying: “Herr Dorothy…fgdasifblewifbe” (something in Dutch – it was hilarious how they pronounced my name). “Mr. Doherty, please begin boarding at gate C4 immediately.” I was a long way from the right gate and I was the last to board my plane, but I made it.

I cleaned up a little and changed to a nicer shirt on the plane, and upon arrival, I saw my three host families and my counselor Lena. We all spoke briefly and introduced ourselves, I exchanged the cash I had for SEK and we headed home.

Later, we all met together again at a BBQ in my honor. We all ate some delicious food, a good first impression of Swedish cuisine, played fotboll, went swimming, and all chatted in English. A quick note: Everyone here has good English. They don’t admit it, but they do. David, my host brother, was about to leave for the US and he was trying to practice his English with me. (He is gone now to Seattle.)

In the first few days I did quite a bit, even with jet lag. I went swimming, paintballing, biking, etc. I tried to get over the jet lag as fast as possible and it worked pretty well, seeing as it only lasted a couple days, although some effects lasted a week or so. For example, I would wake up at noon everyday, still feeling tired (coffee helps). Since then, I have gone on an army ship with my host brother Simon, who is in the Swedish navy, I have stayed in Fristad for the week long language course, I have given a presentation at 7:00 in the morning, på Svenska, to a bunch of Rotarians in the Borås Rotary Club, I’ve wakeboarded; gone sailing; had fotboll practice; observed a floorball practice (which was insane by the way); picked wild raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries; unexpectedly seen the band Europe live; seen other live music like EMD which I don’t really like, but it was fun anyways; gone to Liseberg, an amusement park in Göteborg; biked to school everyday; visited multiple museums, and I don’t even know what else. I try to say yes to almost every offer that involves activity. I have pretty much only spent money on food and candy. Everything here is much more expensive than in the USA, so I try to conserve my money.

I started school last week and I have realized that the school here is so much more relaxed. There is an open campus and no tardies or anything like that (I still really try not to be late). The first days of school (8 days), we haven’t done much of anything because we are slowly easing into having school and we are getting to know all of our classmates. There is a two day trip planned for all of the students in the first year ekonomi class so that we can get to know each other better. My classes consist of: Swedish, English, Math, Social Studies, Geography, History, Sport, and Music. My schedule varies a lot and a lot of the time, the schedule is not followed for some reason.

I think I have summed up the first few weeks pretty well so I will leave you at that. Until next time, greetings från Sverige!

November 4 Journal

Well, it is time for journal number two. To summarize the time I have spent since the last journal in a few words would be impossible. I will at least try to do it some justice.

My Swedish is getting better and better. My overall understanding of speech is okay, much better at reading, not too great at speaking, but I try. I have Swedish lessons once a week and they are helping a little, but I think at home and in school are where most of the learning takes place.

The weather is not too bad yet. It only gets colder and colder. Every night it gets to be around freezing or a little lower so frost in the morning is common. During the day it does not get much warmer and the wind does not help. No snow yet, surprisingly, but I think it will come in a short time. There is more rain than I would like so it is gray quite a bit. I could go on about the weather because it seems to be a prominent subject in conversations, as Swedes care a lot about good weather because it is rare.

I have visited the Rotary club a few times and attend the meetings every other week. They seem to enjoy me and Joe’s (an exchange student from California also living in Lerum) company. Although, the meetings are Tuesday dinner meetings and I have soccer training on Tuesdays a little later in the day.

I am still playing soccer with the local team. It is a good way to make friends and stay fit. I can also work on my Swedish with them as well. The soccer trainings are fun, but now the weather is getting very cold and we practice at 8:00 at night, so all of the practices are very cold. Good thing there is a turf field to play on or the grass would all be dead…

School is going relatively well. The school is in only Swedish except for the English class, so it is tough to manage. But, I try hard, study, and do well on tests and homeworks. Not only are the tests hard because I can’t read the questions, but even if I do know the question, then all of the lectures are in Swedish and all of the papers that the teacher gives out and all of the books, so studying is very difficult. I like school, though. Many friends and it gives me something to do all day instead of just sitting around and doing nothing all day.

I have been hanging out with friends a lot recently. I can now travel freely because I bought a travel card for my free time, (called a fritidskort, literally free time card). Now travel is easy, even long trips where I have to take trains and busses and the like. That makes me wish we had a system so good in the US… But bowling and going to movies, even shooting golf balls on a golfing range.

Last week, my host family planned a surprise party for my host mom and all went well. Everything went according to plan: She had no idea and we set up this big party for her. I was in a suit and it was very fun. My whole family helped with the decorations and the service at the party and it was all really great.

Overall, the best thing for me is that I can see myself maturing. I can see in my thoughts and in my interpretations of events and ethics that I am definitely maturing. I don’t know if I want to mature so fast quite yet. Sometimes I just want to be a kid while I am a kid, but on the other hand I think it is great that my social skills and confidence are higher and I am developing into an adult. Either way, the experiences I am having here are shaping me slowly and I am sure you will be able to see this when I get home. Imagine: It has only been a few months so what will I be like in 9 more months?

So, I am having a good time in Sverige! Best regards to Rotary and the other exchange students. I hope you are having as much fun as I am.

March 6 Journal

It is hard to describe these last few months… I moved to my next family and am having a great time living at their house. I am set up to go to my next host family in just a couple of weeks. My Swedish is getting better every day. Sweden, for me, used to be a place where I was staying for a year. I feel like now it is much more like my home. I feel as though I have lived here for years. I can only imagine the day I get back to my own home and realize that it feels less like home than my Swedish home. It is such a strange feeling to be gone for so long; so long that the new place is now your home.

The day after writing my last journal entry, it snowed for the first time of the year. After that, it continued snowing and snowing and snowing. There is still snow on the ground and it is -5 C mid day now. The snow has been on the ground for months and hasn’t gone away at all. It has gotten down to -20 C in my town, Lerum. I just hope that spring is right around the corner so I can finally do something outdoors! It feels so restricting with snow on the ground everywhere. The upside to the snow is that I went skiing with my host family one day and that was fun. My next family is also taking me on a ski trip over the Easter break for four or five days. I am definitely looking forward to that!

I have experienced many things since my last entry, so I will tell you about some of them. Christmas (Swedish style)! I didn’t think that Christmas would be much different and for the most part I was right. There is not much of a difference between our way and the Swedish way of celebrating. The biggest difference is that they celebrate and open the presents on Christmas Eve instead of the way we do it, on Christmas day. Also, there are different foods and different little things like writing a rhyme on your gift to someone else. I thought this was fun because the person receiving the gift would try to guess what it was by the rhyming clue. However, through all of the good things that happened, this was my first Christmas away from my family. As bad as it sounds, I wasn’t as disturbed by it as I thought I would be. (Sorry mom!).

New Years Eve was also very fun. We had fireworks and were shooting them off all over the place. We also saw a fireworks show that people in the community organize and that was really cool. We then celebrated the countdown and stayed up late having fun.

I have also been sledding (which is really fun and surprisingly dangerous), skiing, Pain-balling, (like paintball without paint in the balls so that they are just rubber), going to school, freezing my butt off outside, and taking in Sweden! I also gave a presentation at my Rotary club and have given multiple presentations at my school about United States history, about Gainesville, and about being an exchange student. I have been having a lot of fun and I hope to continue that when spring comes!

Until next time,

Conor Doherty

Courtenay’s Bio

Hi everybody! My name is Courtenay Johnson!

I was born in Jacksonville, Florida. I am fifteen years old and I am the fifth of sixth children in my family. My second oldest brother, Adrian, is one my best friends. We do everything together from going to Orlando to simply going out to dinner. The youngest in my family is Jamison. He is eighteen months younger than I am. My grandparents unfortunately died before I was born, but I have two uncles on my mother’s side that I have never met.

My father is a dentist in Flagler Beach and my mother is a house wife. I love them both very much. My parents are very supportive of my decisions, but they always put in their own insight on the situation. What kind of parents would they be if they didn’t?

My school life is most excellent. I make good grades and I have a lot of friends that I cherish and love. I have always been very determined to be the best and to get the results I want and need. In fact, in May, 2007 I weighed over 300 pounds. With hard work and a boat-load of support from my friends and family I lost 110 pounds in a little over a year. My parents say I’m hardly recognizable.

I have recently been chosen to study abroad for one year in Finland and I’m soooo excited! I chose to be an exchange student because I want to experience a new culture, learn a new language and learn the ways of the people I do not know.

I cant wait to meet everyone in Finland and build new friendships!!!

Dominic’s Bio

Salutations! My name is Dominic Hoak and I am a member of the graduating class of 2009!!! After graduation I have decided to take a route a little different than all of my friends; instead of going straight to a University, I am going to be spending a year in Ecuador as an exchange student. I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

Now where should I start to tell you more about me… hmmmm?

I’ll start with my familia (that’s Spanish for family; see I’m “basically” fluent). I live with my father. Our house is about a five minute bike ride from the heart of St. Augustine. St. Augustine is a beautiful little town, which seems to always have more tourists than residents. Furthermore, the beach is only three miles away anywhere you are. I’ve grown up here my whole life. My mom lives in Palm Coast about thirty minutes away. I don’t spend a lot of time there, but my mom always comes and visits me and we spend time together. My sister (Natalie) is two years older than me and a student at Florida State University in Tallahassee, which is about two hours away (it depends on how fast you drive). Despite our differences I love her. I only spend holidays with her really, but we stay in contact online (the spacebook as my mom likes to call it [for those that don’t know, “spacebook” is an abbreviation for the social networking websites of myspace and facebook]). I love my family so much. They are so wacky.

So, some more about me. In my spare time I stay pretty busy. I’m involved in the Interact Club, Mu Alpha Theta, and Beta. I’m also in St. Johns County Center for the Arts (SJCCA) in drama. I’ve done plays since I was a kid and have been a part of SJCCA since I was a freshman. I’m also on the tennis team and swim team. I’m also in 4-H, which I LOVE! When I was 8 years old I went to my first 4-H event and it got me hooked. I’m also a working man. I’ve worked in the restaurant business for the past three years for the same family. It is a wonderful experience. One thing that I think I am most proud of, is being a St. Johns County Beach Lifeguard. It was an intense training process but the skills I have learned could not be attained anywhere else.

Now when I am not running around doing any of the above mentioned, I am with my friends. My friends are how you would say in today’s lingo “off the chain”. I love them so much. There is no other way to say it.

Well, that is the brief summary of the adventures of Dominic Davis Hoak. But before I go, I would like to say THANK YOU SO MUCH! I can not wait until August. I am so excited to start my life in Ecuador. As I’m typing this it is hard to hold in a scream of joy because I really can’t wait. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Until we meet again,

Dominic.

Dominic’s Journals

August 14 Pre-departure Journal

I really need to stop telling people that I am going to Ecuador next year, because I’m not; I’m going in 7 days! 7 days! Wow.

Rewind 10 months, and I am sitting in a room with both my parents watching a power point put on by the-one-and-only Daphne Cameron telling me everything I need to know to become an exchange student. Soon after that I started my Rotary Youth Exchange Application. And after all the nervousness, all the signatures needed, and all of the calls to Louise Anderson asking any minute detailed question you could possibly think of about my paperwork, I turned it in. This is when the waiting started. Soon after that I heard of my interview time and place. I went to my interview and continued doing what I became accustomed to, waiting. Waiting… Waiting. Then one day it happened. The last bell of school rang, I looked at my phone and saw a text from my dad saying “a Rotary envelope is at the house addressed to you”. I have to admit, I yelled something to my friend, who just looked at me bewildered, jumped in my car and went a little over the speed limit to my house to rip open an envelope and to have my eyes fall onto one word, “CONGRATULATIONS” and I haven’t looked back since.

One week after my letter, I learned I was going to Ecuador. A week after that I began checking the RYE Florida Website every hour to see if any more outbounds bios had been put on. A month after that it was time. Ryan Cullum, Louise Anderson, and I packed in her car for two hours to go on the way to Eustis, Florida for my first Rotary Orientation to meet all of the people I had read about (and wondered whether to add on Facebook or not.) The weekend was amazing. It might have been the first time I realized I was about to go somewhere completely foreign to me and do something not all could do. But the weekend came to a close and after the goodbyes, and realizations we wouldn’t see some people for five months we did what we begrudgingly did everyday. Wait. But time is what really helped D 6970 become so close.

The kids from my district are just awesome. There is no other way to say it. I have made some amazing friends through Rotary. I am very glad to have spent the past 8 months with these people. It has actually been really tough saying goodbye. Right now, it is an overwhelming experience I am going through. Conor, Maddie, and Zach have all left me. But I can take comfort in the fact Sarah, Simone, and Marea are all after me. Not to mention Nikki, “oh, I remember when I was at 22 days.” But Rotary has introduced me to all of these wonderful people that I know will have a wonderful year.

Not only are the people in RYE Florida great. But the preparation program for all of us students is amazing. Since I first got accepted I began learning more and more about the beautiful, amazing country Ecuador is (and if you too would like to know, I have written a wonderful 12 page paper which I will be glad to share with you). I’ve been through Cultural Boot Camp where I not only was able to learn so much about culture throughout the world, but also learned why to always respond to deadlines the first time they are given (case in point, one 5 minute speech about Rotary’s Polio Plus Campaign.) These might be a couple jokes but in all seriousness, Rotary has prepared us as much as they possibly can. Al Kalter, Daphne, and Jody are all amazing people, along with every other Rotarian involved in Rotary Youth Exchange. The work all Rotarians do for us is amazing.

But thanks to Rotary, my family, and friends, I have almost done it. My pre-departure checklist is almost complete.

Visa : Check

Passport : Check

Blazer : Check

Camera to document life : Check Possibly the most valuable of my tools…

A Rotary Smile : Check

And 2 suitcases filled with my life : well, I still have 7 days …

August 25 Journal

OK, just so everyone knows, I wrote a long journal filled with details explaining every little thing about my trip so far, and then my 1 year old cousin came up the stairs while I was talking with my aunt and deleted the whole thing. I was very sad but it was alright in the end. So here I go for a second time and hope I don’t leave anything out.

On Friday the 21st I woke up and headed to the airport with my parents, my sister and my two best friends. Once we arrived I began to check in. Afterwards my family and I went to sit in some chairs because I had some time to kill. I was filled with so many emotions it is impossible to describe my last minutes with my family. But soon I started to make my way through security with all of them watching me take off my shoes and get my bag searched. But then I was off. I went to my gate and about 15 minutes later Josh joined me and we waited to board our first flight to Miami. We made it there safe and sound, except for the fact we were sitting in the aisle with the propeller and I was not looking out the window most of the time in fear of it flying into the aircraft.

But once we landed and made our way around the Miami airport we ran into the first of about 15 exchange students we would meet. We all sat and talked for the whole layover. It was awesome getting to meet some friends right before we made our trip. We sat at Josh’s gate for the majority of the time and then once their flight was told they would be delayed, all of us students traveling for Quito made our way to our gate. We sat at the gate for 10 minutes, and then it was time. We started to make our way onto the plane. We then negotiated with a couple Germans and a flight attendant and managed to have some of us sit next to each other. The flight was uneventful (so was the food) but after four hours in the air we made it. Quito is gorgeous at night. Flying into the city was one of the most beautiful things I have seen. Soon after, my new friends and I made our way off the plane together and stood in the customs line. It went very fast, including the wait, maybe 10 minutes. Right after we got our bags as a group and as soon as we had everything we made it around the corner to the machine we placed our bags in. A couple of us had to go to a far one and as we walked over there were two doors that opened and a giant mob of people holding signs looking in the doors. I have to admit, and that point I looked at the two other exchange students with me, and we all freaked out a little. But it was alright, as soon as I made it out the doors I couldn’t find my family at first but then I saw their sign with my name spelled wrong and I knew I was at home. I gave my host mom a big hug and then my adventure started.

The first two nights I stayed with my counselor and his family (Esteban and Lily). They are so nice and they spoke good English which helped me learn my way around. During my time with them they showed me all around their city of Cumbaya and even took me to Quito to do some sight-seeing. They are two of the nicest people in the world and I am really glad to have them as my counselors. Well, it was soon time to move in with Teresea. I have to admit I was scared at first. She speaks no English, and my Spanish is far from fluent, but once I made it in the house and put my bags in my room, I felt at home. Teresa and I went on the roof of the house and I did a little looking. Our house is surrounded by mountains. It is amazing. After a few minutes of butchered communications, I showed her some pictures of my house, family, and friends (even some halfway across the world). As she was showing me some pictures of her family, I encountered exchange student hell. My host nephew (who calls me Tio now), came running in the room showing me cards and telling me the words in Spanish wanting me to repeat, a strange man entered the room for a minute and left, Teresa walked out and told me to follow, as we stood in the hallway I was looking at 3 women I had never seen before, a man climbing up the stairs, and 2 nuns staring at me blankly. I had no clue what to say or do except use the one phrase I told myself never to forget: Nice to meet you. As we made our way downstairs there were at least 8 others all talking to each other. Yet again I used my phrase of the day and it went very well. As I walked in the kitchen there were 3 women all bustling about preparing dinner for the small army in the house. About 20 minutes later we all sat down (in three different rooms), and began to eat. It was wonderful eating surrounded by family and that is one thing I like about many of the meals here. After dinner we all moved to the living room and talked for about 30 minutes … well, I listened.

The next day Teresa and I went to Quito (about 15 minutes away by car) and got my pictures for school. I ran into one of my comrades from the airport there and as our host moms talked the next thing we knew they were exchanging numbers and we both just stood there and smiled because we had no clue what was going on. Soon, we left the city and went to one of my aunts’ houses for lunch. We had another awesome meal and afterwards I spent time with two of my cousins and they taught me some Spanish out of a workbook and we went for a walk. The air here is so fresh (despite the overwhelming smell of exhaust). Afterwards we went back to my aunt’s house and we enjoyed conversations which I was able to participate in. My family now realizes that I can speak Spanish decently, just when whoever I am talking to is talking slowly. Even though we can understand each other in Spanish sometimes, we had an epic laugh over a miscommunication about alligators and how my aunt thought I could speak Italian. And most recently, I have gone to school to get my uniform. I actually really like it, because as I stand one foot above most people with my blonde hair, it is one thing to not make me stick out.

Information I have learned since arriving in Ecuador:

1 – Ecuador is the best, has always been the best, and will always be the best at everything.

2 – Crossing the street is fun.

3 – Driving in Ecuador is more intense than NASCAR. No one stays in their lanes and honking your horn at anything and everything is almost encouraged.

4 – Animals are not royalty, they are treated like animals.

5 – Dogs live in the street.

6 – Women do most of the housework. I ask to help and I am told to sit down.

Well, my nephew is trying to talk to me right now so I have to go figure out what he is saying.

¡Hasta Luego!

September 12 Journal

Well, I have been living this wonderful new life for 3 weeks now. It is everything I had imagined, and not foreseen. It is exactly what I wanted and dreaded at the same time. It is my own personal oasis at times, only to be followed by that one nightmare where I am giving a speech in my underwear. But one thing is certain, I love this city, this world, this new life that I am living in.

There are too many stories, too many memories, too many experiences to put into words. I feel like I have been here for so much longer than 3 weeks, and at the same time I feel like I just walked out of my front door in St. Augustine into this strange land. My city is beautiful. 10 minutes away from my house is this little thing called the Equator (you might have heard of it), I have traveled there with my cousins and of course taken a picture of being in the northern and southern hemisphere at the same time. I have also traveled to see some of the lakes and mountains in Ecuador. By the way, there is snow on top of some of the mountains here! WHAT! Snow, I know, right. But, I have gotten used to seeing it now (almost).

I have also gone to the language camp put on by the Rotary clubs of Ecuador. During the 5 days at this camp my Spanish improved even more, I made 26 amazing friends that are living in the Quito area, and I learned that no matter how much my friends and I practiced saying ingredients in Spanish, Pizza Hut will put whatever they want on your pizza. Also, I have gone and visited for the first time the Rotary Club Quito Sur (my host club). It is quite different from my Rotary Club back home (shout out to the Rotary Club of St. Augustine). For starters, at the meeting there were only 7 Rotarians. The Rotarians also smoked inside. I can’t even remember the last time I was indoors and people smoked, that was very very strange for me. But one thing that I could relate about both clubs was that the food was sooooo good. I don’t know what I ate, but I would be fine with eating it again. But that goes for all of the food that I have had in Ecuador so far. I hope everyone has a host aunt that can cook like my Tía Oneyda. All of the food I have eaten so far has been amazing (except for one incident with an empanada from a street vendor that my stomach didn’t necessarily agree with, and let me tell you, boy did it not agree). I really have to say that the food here is wonderful. The bread store at the end of my street makes some of the best bread in Quito, I swear.

However, despite all of the good news I now must tell you that my honeymoon is over. How do I know, you ask? Well it happens every year around this time in the United States as well… the beginning of a new school year. I walked into school the first day completely lost in my track suit uniform. My host mom was with me though so it was all okay. We sat on a bench for a little while and then one of the two people I knew showed up. The first was Juan Fernando who is in the same grade as me but in a different course. And then my friend Hilary from Rotary Language Camp showed up. The three of us made our way down to the little basketball/fútbol court and we all got into our course lines and listened to the Inspector (Principal) talk for a little while. Then we sang the National Anthem of Ecuador (Hilary and I mouthed the words) and then it was time to begin school. Luckily one of my professors is one of my host mom’s best friends, so that works out very nicely for me (especially since she was my first professor). And due to Juan Fernando I have plenty of friends in the school.

I am in the Sixth Course Social Science, and my classes are rather interesting (when I understand what the professor is actually saying). My classes consist of History, English, Philosophy, Geography, Literature, the equivalent of P.E. (but we call it CuFi), Economics, Computers class, French, Math, one class about social something, one class about Ecuador, and then one class about the world and nature. The way I classified school to one of my friends is the uniform of Gossip Girl (people give it whatever accessories they want, or don’t follow it at all), the attitude of The O.C. (parents pay a lot of money on school, and some of the kids don’t even bother to try), and the schedule of the Harry Potter books (the Professors teach every grade multiple times throughout the week including some double blocks, it takes some serious planning to make that schedule just right).

Everyone at my school is really nice. School was one of the first times I was able to see how Ecuadorian teenagers act not around their parents. People do not hesitate at all with their public displays of affection. I won’t go into extreme detail, but that is one difference that’ll some getting used to. Also, I feel that the girls are harassed a lot more here than in the United States, not a Chris Brown-Rihanna way; just accompanying the PDAs people are more physical here than in Florida. But as for actual school being concerned, I do like it. The campus is outside. So when I have to walk to my classes it is nice to get some fresh air. I have had two tests so far, one on the National Anthem of Ecuador, and one on the provinces and capitals of Ecuador. I did well on both of them, and scored higher than most of the other students on the provinces and capitals test. The only bad thing that has happened so far was that one kid tried to send me in the girls bathroom, luckily my friends stopped me in time and I haven’t had much more interaction with the other kid.

Peace and love to everyone back home, and all my friends around the world,

Dominic (or Dominique as they say here)

October 23 Journal

I am so sorry I have been a slacker on this. I think my contest with Jamie Lynn Patterson on who will have the most journals is done, especially since Max and Brandon are killing us both. But I have been here for two months now! How exciting. School has finally become a regular routine, I can get from Point A to Point B on a bus (well, there are only like 3 places I know how to get to, and I know how to get home from one of them, so I’m still working on that), and of course my Spanish is improving everyday.

Well my daily routine starts at 5:45 every morning. I shower, eat breakfast, and am waiting outside for the bus at 6:45. I get in the bus, climb to the third row and say hello to the four girls sitting behind me who greet me with a chorus of “Hola Domi.” I go to school, come home, eat lunch, start my homework (well, not always), partake in siesta (nap time), and then eat dinner only to sleep some more.

Also this past month I have experience Visa catastrophe 2009. Now I am now talking about my debit card, I am referring to the paper that allows me to stay in Ecuador for more than 90 days. During my flight I was sitting next to the window and I assume while I was filling out my immigration forms on the plane I set the folder containing all my Rotary paperwork, Visa paperwork, and anything else I received in order for exchange in between my seat and the window. Well luckily, my dad in the US tracked down all of these documents and I was able to turn them in the last day possible without having to pay $200. Basically, if you become an exchange student, don’t lost your Visa, and if you manage to do something like that tell your host family, counselor and everyone so you can find it before the day it is due.

Oh, and at school a couple weeks ago, I was asked to bring in 50 cents for the Principal’s birthday. I thought it was a little weird and all but I come to find out that it is a tradition. Well, one Wednesday we are sitting in French class when all of a sudden the school bell rings twice. People suddenly burst into action. Some people run out of the room with bags, others start fixing their hair, and one student (me) is sitting in his seat wondering what is going on. After I finally put it all together I went with what remained of my class to the gym/stadium. Since I am in sexto course (equivalent to a senior) I got to go down on the stadium floor to be with the principal. Well, a mariachi band randomly appeared and started playing a few songs. Everyone in my course starting dancing so I joined in. After the band left and everyone else had to go to their classes, the sexto course went to a private room that was all decorated and set up for the occasion. There was also a champagne toast between the principal and the students. I thought celebrating the principal’s birthday was weird, but I have gotten used to that now, even though the day after we celebrated a teacher’s birthday.

But more recently this past week I went to the coast of Ecuador in the city of Manabí with all of the exchange students in the country. The 50 something exchange students from the Quito area gathered around 0700 to begin our adventure. We soon left for the beach and after our 9 hour bus ride managed to get to our hotel around 1700. After we checked in the hotel (being the last group of exchange students to arrive) we jumped in the pool, greeted everyone, and started making friendships that now seem so much older than 5 days. It was basically a weekend of getting to know everyone, sightseeing a couple of the coast towns, participating in a parade (I held the American flag for most of the parade route), and of course frolicking on the beach. This was my second time at the beach here and I took full advantage of it; being able to run with the sand beneath my feet, diving into the waves, and playing in a little tournament of beach futbol made me feel at home. Also Ecuador Rotary put together a little banquet for us at the end of the trip where each country had a boy and girl representative. I was the guy from the USA, and next thing I knew I was participating in a dance contest (if you know me this is my type of thing). Well, I made it to the final round only to be beat by my friend Uli from Germany. We soon ate dinner (at 2330, blaaaahhhh), and afterwards had two full hours of dancing. I was rather satisfied when I learned that the DJ had Cotton Eye Joe because no matter how much I might have complained about that song in the states I was thrilled and proud to be able to dance to it (despite the fact I was a fountain of sweat at the end of it). The next day was the bus ride home where my conversations ranged with many people about their views of Americans, world politics, and what we plan to do with our lives.

But now it is back to everyday life. No more running around at the beach, instead when I walk up the stairs I am out of breath. I have been home about three days and haven’t been to school because I am sick and sound like a 90 year old smoker. I haven’t been able to talk since last Friday so none of the other exchange students know what my real voice sounds like which is kinda strange. Not to mention my skin is peeling like crazy because naturally I didn’t put sun screen on for 3 hours in direct sunlight on the equator, I’m stupid. But now I am going to go make myself another glass of tea and get better.

February 12 Journal

Por fin! So I am still down here in Ecuador even if I have been away from the Journal scene a little bit. But what can I say? I have been a little busy. I have changed host families. I have changed schools. I have been to bull fights. I have even been in the arena with a bull (scariest moment of my life). I have celebrated a tiny Thanksgiving in different customs. I have gone through the holiday season, and handled it pretty well all things considered. I have even turned a year older. There are so many stories that are mine, and mine alone. And no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to do them justice (also, I don’t want you to be reading for 4 hours, neither do you, I think). But this country, the cities I have been too, the people I have met, are overwhelming.

So where to try to begin… I spent the holidays with my first host family. We went to my Aunt’s house and had a huge dinner there and later we stayed up until midnight to open presents. The next day (25th of December) was just a day to relax, which was also the day that I tried mountain biking. If you were wondering, it was also the last day I tried mountain biking. The 26th we made our way to the beach, which we stayed there till the 3rd of January. Now I must say that that emotion curve knows what it is talking about. January 1st 0030 (AM), by far the worst part of my exchange. We spent the next couple days at the beach and returned home.

In between January 5th and 16th I did not go to school because I was about to change host families and since I was moving an hour and some odd minutes away, I was able to change schools as well. So far it has been great. I have already made a lot more friends and have even been a little busier after school. Oh yeah, my new school has 8 people in the entire graduating class. Umm, what else can I put in here???

Spanish is still coming along. I think my language skills are the same as a lot of other peoples, not where we want it. But there is nothing we can do about that, except study more, which brings me to the point that EVERY Rotary Youth Exchange Future Outbound has heard, will hear, and will repeat one day… Study your target language now. Not a week before you leave. Not with flashcards on the airplane (guilty of that). And most importantly, not HOPING that one day you will wake up 5 months into your exchange year and understand everything. Because you won’t. Oh, congratulations ’10-’11 Outbounds, to you all as well. I forgot that part earlier on.

I hope you are following around, because I am just skipping all over the place.

Carnaval is starting this weekend. Well, it is safe to say that everyone is already in the mood of spraying people with silly string, and throwing water balloons at each other. The water balloons is only a Quito thing, I think. In the south they throw eggs, water, flour, dirt, and anything else that flies onto people and gets them messy. But like I said, everyone is already ready. Just in fact yesterday as I was walking down the street with a couple friends, a school bus drove by and we were attacked by green silly string and water. It was funny for the most part, except the bus stopped and I had lost my full water bottle, which if I had would have been all over them in retaliation. But alas, you can’t win every battle. Oh, to celebrate the festivities of Carnaval my host family and I are going to the beach with one of my exchange friends Nikita.

Alright, well that is all I can think of without making this too long. Except a huge thank you to Rotary. We all say it. And we all mean it. Thank you thank you thank you. There is no other way to say it. Thank you, especially to the program back in Florida; Ms. Daphne, Al, Jody, and everyone else behind the scenes. Also to you, Louise, of course!

Next journal will be better with more details and pictures. And sooner.

Paz y amor!

Elizabeth’s Bio

Sawat dii kha. Hello. My name is Elizabeth Earnhart and I am a senior at Bartram Trail High School. I am 18 years old and I am about to embark on the most fantastic opportunity of my life. I am ecstatic and oh so grateful at having been selected to be a Rotary exchange student this year. My destination? Thailand. The fact of the matter is that it’s all very surreal to me.

I am the oldest child in my family, my younger brother is 15, and I have always had what my mom calls, “wanderlust.” Throughout the years I would jump at any opportunity to travel across the US, but I especially liked traveling abroad. I think that my parents had to realize early-on that I was an explorer and would not be sticking around long after high school. But don’t get me wrong. I love my friends, my home, and my family.

I want to be part of the Rotary youth exchange because I want to break down cultural barriers, not only for myself, but for others as well. I want to give Thais a taste of real America, not the Hollywood version, and I want to tell Americans what Thailand is really like without any preconceptions getting in the way of the truth. This experience is going to be a challenging one. But the reward is going to be so much greater.

I am the kind of person who takes joy from being a friend to others. I love to encourage people, and to help them when they are in need. I tend to over-plan, yes, but I do not regret any minute of my usually hectic schedule. I love music, but I also love the outdoors, as well as camping, hiking, biking and SCUBA diving. Nature is endless, and you can always find something new. Sewing is another one of my favorite past-times. I make some of my own clothing, and it’s a very rewarding feeling wearing something that you’ve made. My faith is also something that is very important to me. I love to sing, read, and act every now and then. I even wrote my own monologue for the talent portion in the Miss Bartram Pageant last year.

And so, there you have it. I thank Rotary for this opportunity, and my family for their support. I cannot wait to embark on this adventure, to go to Thailand and learn a whole new way of life compared to how I now live. I am looking forward to meeting my future host families and friends. I cannot express the excitement that is growing inside of me. Thank you. Khap khun kha.

Elizabeth’s Journals

August 7 Journal

I arrived in my city, Khon Kaen about a week ago and Thailand is SOOOOO beautiful! I can’t stop smiling and everyone is so friendly and they all go out of their way to help even though most of them don’t speak English. The only two people I have met who speak English well enough to communicate effectively with are MaaMeow (another exchange student from South Africa) and PuuRee (a Thai boy who just got back from exchange to Canada). MaaMeow has been here already for 6 months so she is helping to teach me Thai. My oldest host brother is already at university in India, so I am using his room while he is gone. My 16 year old brother, Top, speaks some English but he is leaving for exchange to Canada on the 9th of August. My 14 year old brother, Tee, is just like Matthew in the sense that he plays W.O.W. all day, haha.

When I got to Bangkok, my mom, MayPen, Top, PuuRee, MaaMeow, and two other ladies from my Rotary Club, MayJeet (PuuRee’s mom) and MayOor had big posters with my picture on them and greeted me like I was their long lost daughter. It was so nice and the banners said “Welcome Home”. I learned that my Rotary Club is an all woman club and that is so cool and absolutely unheard of in the U.S. So we stayed the night in Bangkok and then went to JJ Market the next morning and then drove 7 hours to get to Khon Kaen.

Everything is extremely cheap, especially food. I have not purchased anything yet thought because as a part of their “family” I am paid for at meals. There are elephant pictures on literally EVERYTHING here, buildings, purses, walls, etc. And I got to pet and feed a baby elephant today! It was so cute and they are just led around Khon Kaen and you pay to feed it bamboo. It was such a cool experience, maybe next time I can ride a grown-up one!

Oh, and I thought that I was going to be really uncomfortable getting used to Thai toilets, but they are really cool actually. In my house there is a western style toilet and shower, so that is cool. But in public bathrooms the “toilet” is a squat-potty, so it is porcelain and you do your business, throw the paper in a waste basket next to the toilet (if there is paper) and then to “flush” you take a bucket that is in a barrel of water in the stall and you pour one or two bucket-fulls in until gravity does its job. It’s really neat actually.

But the whole experience overall has been more than awesome. I have tried SOOOO many different types of food already, it’s so diverse and a complete 180 from anything you would see in the States. My city is so full of life at night though. It’s almost ridiculous how late things stay open, like malls and night markets and salons open at this hour! Some of them do not even open their doors for business until it gets dark.

I am not going to school until a week from tomorrow because I have to get the uniform and also go back to Bangkok one or two more times this week to pick-up more inbounds and also to take some Thais who are leaving on exchange.

It is so awesome here, so real and unique and just overall amazing; full of life and color and new sights, smells and tastes. The weather is very similar to Florida, less humid during some parts of the day and more humid during others. It is the rainy season here now just like in Florida also. I feel like I am writing SOOO much, and yet there is so much that has already happened. Oh, I also was given a new name as soon as I was greeted at the airport. My Thai nick-name is Aarie (pronounced like the long “a” in apple, a rolling “r” and the “e” sound from the word bee). It is difficult to learn all of the politeness of the culture but I am working on it.

Sawat dii Kha.

-Aarie

September 7 Journal

So, I have been here for over a month and wow, what all am I supposed to say? I will start with school. I am at a demonstration school (high school) that is on the campus of Khon Kaen University and I am in the 11th grade. There are six classes (groups of students) in each grade level and there are a little under 40 people in my class but it doesn’t feel that large because not all of us are ever in the same room at the same time. I have 28 different subjects every week and school is from 8AM – 4PM Monday through Friday. I use my time during school to practice my Thai and I am also starting to learn how to read and write the language.

There are 44 consonant symbols in the Thai language and another 32 vowels, so memorizing those and how to write them is going slow, but it is also a lot of fun to have my class-mates walk up to me and help me pronounce them and ask me if I remember them etc. Finding a close group of friends is going slow as well, but it’s not a problem because I understand that right now there is still quite a large language barrier and also everyone is more than happy to be friendly to you and show you where to go and take you to class etc.

My Thai is still improving and I am still having daily Thai lessons with my mom at home. I am so thankful for this too because I can understand a lot more than I can speak and even the amount that I can speak seems to impress a lot of people. I really love my host mom and my host family, they are more than I could have asked for, really.

Two weeks ago in school there was a sports week and a parade. My class dressed me up in the traditional Thai dance costume and put me at the front of the parade! At first I was a little scared because I didn’t know where to go but then the marching band walked in front so everything was okay. Also for sports week they had football (soccer) games and basketball games and volleyball and swimming. I swam for my team and ended up receiving a gold medal in the medley and a silver medal in the freestyle race. It was so much fun.

I think also that half of the fun of things here so far is figuring them out. Confusion sometimes turns into frustration but most of the time it is like a puzzle, and if you can’t work it out at first, ask, try again, or just smile and laugh with the people you are with because you are enjoying just being in their company and appreciative of the fact that they are trying to help you to learn their language and their culture.

In the past month, my host brother Top has left to go to Canada on his exchange. And exchanges from Brazil (Anun), Canada (Dao), and Germany (Chai Lai) have come to Khon Kaen. It is quite a sight to see all of us walking down the street together or even when we see each other every now and then at school because people are always staring at us. There is so much more to say that I really can’t think of it all.

Our families took all of the exchange students to an ancient temple near the city of Korat a few weeks ago and it was so awesome and so large. I really love life here, it is so different from the states, the food as well and the culture, I just can’t soak it all in fast enough. Some food is pretty out-there though, I think the two things that have topped the list so far are coagulated chicken blood (served as cubes in soups) and chicken feet. But I am still going to try everything that is put in front of me because otherwise, I will be missing a part of something that I am supposed to be experiencing.

There is a night market in my city that is completely amazing as well. During the day the street is a normal one, used my traffic and located down town. But as soon as the sun starts to go down, vendors from everywhere emerge from who knows where and set up shop. The whole street is blocked off and endless food stalls and clothes shops and music stores etc are set up. One of my favorite things here is the fruit and also the coffee, it is really like nothing I have ever tasted in the states. Also at the night market it isn’t uncommon to see fried bugs for sale. My mom told me that she will take me to try them soon! Grasshoppers I heard were pretty good. =D I am really very excited.

Every time I experience something new and taste something new and see something new, I cannot wait to get more. I can only hope that new things will continue to be revealed, but I know that they will. I wish that I could recount more to write but there is too much to sort through. So until next time, chok dee, sawat dee kha.

Oh – I’ve posted some pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/41998919@N08.

October 11 Journal

There has been so much interesting stuff that has happened over the course of the break from school so far and there is still three weeks left! I have found some really good Thai bands that I like and that has put things in a new perspective, at least with the pop culture. Because most of the videos that you see on TV are the sappy love songs and they make you feel so sad when you watch them or even listen to them, but I found some good rock bands like “Big Ass” “Bodyslam” and “Clash” and a good rap artist “Titanium” as well as the ever-popular “Tatto Colour” “Potato” and “Clash” among others. “Tatto Colour” is from my city originally and went to a high school not even five minutes away from my house, they reminded me of “Yellow Card” in Jacksonville because they all went to Stanton High School, downtown too. Also, music is a really good way to learn the language as well and since karaoke is really popular here as well, that will help me learn the pronunciation.

One of the first things that we did after school got out was to go and see a Beijing Acrobatics show and that was really fun. Our leash has gotten a little bit longer because we have been here and their trust in us is growing, so that is exciting. Usually we can just ask to go out during the day and get on a song-tow (a taxi-truck thing) and go pretty much where-ever in our city as long as we are back by dinner time.

Another thing that we got to do which was really awesome was a photo tour of famous places right outside of Khon Kaen. We went to see the Snake Village where people fought with King Cobras and put their heads in their mouths… ugghh (I actually felt bad for the snakes because you could tell they weren’t interested in being a part of the show). But all of the other places were really pretty, like we went to a dam and also to the top of a mountain and to see a very large statue of Buddha on a different mountain. It was so fun and I really enjoyed stretching my legs and hiking and the nature and the views too.

And as far as Rotary functions go, we are always front and center. We attended a “Car Free Day” in Khon Kaen where hundreds of people rode their bikes through the streets just to promote not using as many cars because of the pollution and the smog that it creates. We started at 7am and ended around 10am but it was fun while it lasted! I had been missing going to the gym and getting exercise on a regular basis and then about two weeks ago I found a gym right near my house. My mom and I joined together and it only costs 2,000 baht a year for membership! That’s about $60 which is sooo awesome! But now I go to the gym when I have free time so hopefully I can start to get back into shape. =D

My brother who goes to college in India came home for a couple of weeks and that was so awesome to get to know him and hang out with him for the short time that he was here. We clicked from the start and I really feel that he is the big brother that I have never had. He was always looking out for me and it was so awesome because it made me feel even MORE a part of the family (which I didn’t know was possible because I am already soo close with my family and I wish I didn’t have to change).

The exchange students from my club are in the middle of doing a fundraiser right now to raise money to donate to a temple. The money will go to buy lunch for a school of boy monks at the temple for a week. This school is where the poorer families send their sons to get an education because it is free. We have been going to different locations around the city and singing songs and giving out bracelets that we made while asking for donations, I don’t know how much we have yet but the box it getting pretty heavy. =D And when we were doing this at the lake a few of the days they had this huge festival going on. There was a fair and a huge stage where there were performances and everything. It was to celebrate the end of a Buddhist fast that started in the summer. We got to send off a paper lantern into the sky at night with the full moon and it was so exciting.

While all of this was going on as well, I found out that I got accepted to the University of Central Florida for the fall semester next year and it was a complete relief and weight off my shoulders. I am stoked about that and when I told my mom she was so excited for me, she even got me a present in congratulations and gave me a big hug (hugs are pretty rare here by the way, so that was really cool). I really feel like I am her daughter, its such a neat feeling to experience that and know that you have two moms.

As for what I have eaten that is different this month… I would have to say that it was Shark Ear Soup… I really think that it was shark gills or shark fins or something, but they said that it was shark ear. It was a Chinese dish, and believe you me, if you think you know what Chinese food is, you have no idea! “Real” Chinese food is filled with things that A) you have no clue what they are and B) you don’t really want to know what they are. I think out of 10 different dishes that we tried that night, one of them would be considered edible by the average American, haha.

I also found another market right near my house and this one is a real Thai market. You walk through one section that is just fruit and the next thing you know you are standing next to the severed head of a pig (“Lord of the Flies” style) or you end up next to bins of live eels/frogs/fish/bugs/you-name-it ready to be bought and cooked up for dinner. It is really an interesting experience; every time I go, I see something new. Finding new markets is always exciting too because exploring the markets is really one of the most fun things to do when you want to go on an adventure! It’s one thing that I wish we had in the States because you go to one place and you can get anything you want and it’s not preserved or pre-packaged and it doesn’t come from a factory either.

One of my favorite foods that I have found here is called Sardra-pow. It looks like a cloud and it is a tasteless white fluffy steamed bun-type thing that has stuff inside of it. It can be filled with minced pork or a sweet custard or taro (which is also like a sweet bean-paste, sounds gross but it isn’t haha) or my favorite which is pork and bamboo with a sweet-spicy sauce. It is a great snack but it is really hard to find street vendors of them but I don’t know why, because everyone likes Sardra-pow.

I think that my favorite thing to do at home is to cook. My mom and my house-keeper have both been teaching me how to cook Thai food and usually I help them make lunch and sometimes dinner as well. It is really exciting when I get to make a dish by myself or with little supervision and it is so much fun to cook with them and joke around in the kitchen! I will have to start writing down recipes soon because there are so many different things that we cook. And my mom’s cooking is really better than most of the restaurants that we go to, so, maybe some of her skill will rub off on me. =D

Sorry this journal was so long, I just feel like there is so much to say to tell everyone. And even after I say it I feel like it isn’t enough description because while things are so much different here, they are so real and I just wish that everyone can experience at least a little bit of it through what they read. Thank you Rotary again, I cannot say thank you enough for this opportunity! PS: My conversations in Thai are still improving pretty well and I am almost to the point where I can read all of the symbols!

November 22 Journal

I knew that there was a reason for me putting off writing the journal for this month. At first I just thought it was so many things going on, my birthday, and just plain laziness, but now I realize that there was a completely different reason for it. It gave me the time to have a realization that there is more than can be seen, it’s under the surface and the exchange students in my city have just discovered it. I would love for this journal to serve the purpose of sharing all the amazing experiences that I have had in the past month. However, this journal needs to serve a much larger purpose.

In the past month, I have had my eyes opened. I look around me now and see a completely different Thailand than the one I entered almost four months ago. I don’t think that I expected this, and if I did I never expected it to come this early in my exchange. It is almost as if I turned 19 and everything changed overnight. Don’t get me wrong, I really love it here. But, as my friend put it to me; I entered Thailand as an enfant, with big eyes full of wonder. Like I had seen a silver spoon for the first time and was riveted when I saw what a spoon was, shiny and bright and exciting. But as I spent time here I grew up, usually it takes longer, but I grew up in four months and when I grew up I could see that the spoon was not as I originally thought. It was instead, tarnished and bent out of shape. I lost my innocence as that enfant, but as it turns out this is a very good thing especially because it happened so fast. I would rather be shocked by the truth now than be fooled and have the truth hurt more later. Ok, to get to the point, I apologize for the vague metaphors.

Lately my Rotary club has gone crazy with the amount of projects that we are doing. We have been to at least ten different functions outside of regular meetings this month so far. And while this sounds well and good, it leaves me with a feeling of frustration and disgust. The reason for this is because these functions are all for show. I didn’t realize until now how different my Rotary club at home is from my Rotary club here. At home when my club decided to do something, they would do it in the name of Rotary but for the good of the community around them. To help others. Here, when my Rotary club decides to do something, they do it in the name of Rotary, but they do it for themselves. To give the impression that they are helping others. The best way to explain this would be to compare two experiences that have left an impression on me here. The first would be when the other exchange students and I went to a village outside of our city to help improve their school during the school break. We went with a group called “Rotaract”. These are college age students who are aspiring Rotarians. We stayed in the village for four days and at night we slept in the school rooms. We cooked our own food and painted, played with the children, cleaned the campus, put up new posters, built bookshelves and an assortment of other things. We rode to the village on an open-air transport, woke up at six AM, went to sleep past one or two in the morning and had open-air showers. In essence it was a REAL experience. It was fun and at the end we knew we had left an impression. We had bonded with the kids, taught them “Duck, Duck, Goose“, learned their games and just had fun with them. It is something that I want to go back to, the children were more than adorable and so curious and fun-loving. I can’t even really put it into words, but that is something that I was proud to do with the name of Rotary attached to it.

However, just the other day our Rotary club told us that we were going to donate books to libraries at rural schools. At first it sounded like it might be a similar experience to the one we had before. We woke up early and went to the first location. When we got there we gave the school a few sports balls for the children, which isn’t a bad thing. But that is really the only beneficial thing we did there. We sat in a meeting for a couple for hours while the kids were nowhere to be seen, except peeking in through a window every now and then. At the meeting, our moms all stood up and introduced themselves and their businesses. Then they had us introduce ourselves. By this time we knew already that the reason we (the exchange students) had come was so that our moms could show us, the foreign kids, off. After introductions and a lot of talk about how Rotary wants to help in this way or that comes the pictures. This is part of what aggravates me because we then walked through their library and proceeded to leave. The exchange students were able to buy a little bit of time and we taught the kids how to play “Duck, Duck, Goose” but as soon as Rotary had taken enough pictures of this as well, they told us that we had to leave. It left me feeling empty and confused; why would we go to a school to “give the children books” for their benefit, and then not? We came, talked, took pictures and left, giving them only a few sports balls. That does not leave an impression (or improve a library). And yet when we were back in the car, we overheard Rotary talking about how we should make the pictures into postcards so that everyone would be able to see how much good we did for the school. We went to two other schools that day and did the exact same thing.

The point is that Rotary here will go somewhere and make promises of helping there and take a ton of pictures. But when they return home, they rarely do anything about the promises they made and yet they print the pictures in order to show others the good that they are doing for the community. There is another reason why this is so unsettling to me though. It goes against culture here. I would say that generally in the U.S. the average stranger would not stop what they are doing to help someone or go out of their way to be concerned about a complete stranger. But here, everyone is not only always smiling, but they help people they don’t know on the street to carry a package or they seem that something might be wrong and they ask if they can help etc, etc, etc. There are countless things that I see every-day that you would rarely see in the states, that go along these lines. The irony comes in where the Rotary clubs at home go to help others and here they just go through the motions to get their names out there for social recognition.

Please do not get me wrong though, this is not me complaining about my situation or asking for something different. I am fully enjoying my experiences here and I really love Thailand, all of the people and culture that surrounds me. This is just an observation, an epiphany that I have had that I felt should be shared for the sake of dispelling ignorance. On a brighter note however, I have been having such a great time at school since it has opened again. Before, to be completely honest, I hated school. It was boring and I couldn’t communicate with anyone and I felt like a burden. When school closed I could not say that I had made any friends. Acquaintances maybe, but no friends. Now however, my Thai has improved greatly and I can talk to my class. People ask me to come to class with them or to eat lunch with them now because they want to, not because they feel like they have to. I have had discussions about American vs. Thai culture and one of the girls wants me to have a sleepover with her soon. Another girl and I hung out the past weekend outside of school (first time that has happened!), we sang karaoke and it was so much fun! This sounds so insignificant, but to me the significance is more than I can put into words. I will never take friendships for granted EVER again, now that I know just how hard it is to obtain those friendships.

Another exciting thing is that the conversations with my mom have gotten more intense. Also, my dad and my house keeper join in the conversations. They are so cute really, my dad is so much fun to joke around with! We talk about American history, copyrights, famous people and books, culture, religion, family, college, everything. And I am getting more brave to talk to random people, the workers in my shop, people at school and my little brother (who doesn’t really talk much in general). The weather is getting cooler and while I am missing people at home things are still improving almost daily.

I would like to thank Rotary at home again, thank you for sending me to Thailand, thank you for this experience. Especially the chance to learn so many lessons and to grow so much; to find out who I really am amongst an environment that I am also discovering at the same time. For the chance to know what it is to really live as your own.

December 17 Journal

Wow, has it really been a month since my last journal? This has been the fastest passing month yet. It seems as if everything is catching up with everything else. In less than a month, one of my closest friends, MaaMeow, will be leaving to go back home to South Africa. Her exchange started in January of last year, so she will be leaving this coming January. And while I will miss her fiercely, I am happy for her that she gets to go back and be with her family. The other exchange students and I will also be changing host families soon, but we are not exactly sure when. It is such a strange feeling for it to be December and not see any signs of Christmas, like lights, trees, music, holiday food, or TV commercials. I mean, I don’t miss the same songs playing endlessly everywhere you go, or the food that makes you need a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. But I do miss having the cold nights and chilly days, decorating the tree with family, shopping with friends and baking until you just can’t bake anymore. =D It is a fun kind of missing though, if that makes any sense. They are nostalgic and fond memories that make me smile and realize that I will appreciate it so much more next year.

But aside from that, everything is going really well here in Thailand. In the past few weeks there has been so much going on. There was a silk festival (the biggest annual festival in all of North East Thailand) about a block from my house! It lasted for 10 days and covered probably 4 city blocks that surrounded a big park, the streets to that area were closed and shops were set up, food vendors and two big stages for concerts to be held. I was able to go to two of the concerts on two different nights and they were so much fun. I saw SEK LOSO and CLASH, of which CLASH was more fun but there were so so many people there, it was hard to walk.

After the festival, all the exchange students plus my older brother and one of our mutual friends went to Chaing Mai and Chaing Rai together for 3 days. It is the second time that I have been to Chaing Mai, but this time we were there for longer and it was so much fun to get to see more! We went to see the Panda bears at the Chaing Mai zoo. They are on loan from China until the new baby is five years old, and they are SOOOO popular in Thailand. There is even a TV channel just for them and it is 24 hour footage of the baby and them eating bamboo and sleeping etc, lol. =D We were also able to go to the infamous Chaing Mai walking street. But we didn’t have near as much time as we needed or wanted to do all of the shopping there that we wanted to do. We also was a beautiful temple in Chaing Rai that is completely white, wow it was so amazing! The tour was supposed to go to the Golden Triangle as well but we were running late and we didn’t have time. It’s okay though because we got to visit a lot of other cool places, like the highest spot in Thailand (only 60 degrees F in December though)! But because we were 12 hours north of Khon Kaen the weather was a lot cooler and it felt soooo good! =D

My older brother is actually back from India for good. He didn’t enjoy school there so he is living at home and going to attend university here in the spring I think. It is cool to have him at home. Oh, and we have a new puppy at my house! =D It is 5 days old and I got to hold him the other day. Gosh he is SOOOOOOO cute and small. He can fit in the palm of my hand and his eyes aren‘t open yet and he can‘t hear yet either! But he makes such cute little noises and squirms around lol.

I feel like such a permanent part of my family now too. I am comfortable doing anything at my house and around my family, just like I have been living here as a real sibling or daughter for my whole life. Also, the language is going really well still. I am starting to read little words and I can write little things like my name etc. And I can understand so much. But at the same time I know that I need to learn so much more and I need to go so much further with trying to get better at the language and vocab and everything. I feel like I know a lot and it surprises me sometimes but I also know that I am behind, that I could have been so much better at this point than I am. It gives me the motivation to try harder, some days I don‘t want to try but it is necessary. It is frustrating though when people are SO surprised that you understand them and especially when they try to convince you that you don’t know what they are talking about or that you aren’t trying to say what you ARE trying to say. But I guess that I should just try to channel that into more motivation. I don’t want to feel comfortable with the level I am at, I want to be pushed beyond elementary.

I have though started to learn how to play the Kluei, which is a Thai instrument. It is similar to the recorder in the states. But I am learning one Thai song on it right now and I hope to learn another one soon. It is very fun and it is helping me to get to know more people at my school which is always a good thing. Today I watched a Korean soap opera with a friend from my class and got to talk to two people that I have never met before for over an hour. It was really awesome. =D And next week, the Princess of Thailand is coming to our school for the opening of the new building that we have. In a week our school have gone from dirt, concrete and white paint to grass, flowers everywhere, banners, ribbons, new paint on everything and decorations EVERYWHERE. It really is almost unrecognizable, lol. But I am excited to see what is actually happening next week when the Princess comes. =D It is such a big deal here and each of the members of the royal family has a special color assigned to them. The King is yellow, the the Queen is dark blue and this Princess is purple. But because she is purple, there is purple everywhere you look. I will take pictures and post them up on the flickr site.

I hope that everyone in the States and other Christmas-celebrating countries has a wonderful Christmas! And to everyone, a Happy New Year! =D Here, Christmas will just be the exchange students doing a small gift exchange and I am happy that it won’t be a big deal actually. I am sending my love and smiles to everyone in Florida! And as always, thank you Rotary for this awesome opportunity that is enabling me to become the best me that I can be, for giving me a chance to see everything through new eyes. =D

January 27 Journal

I keep experiencing deeper levels of comfortableness here. And I think naively every time that it can’t get more comfortable, that I have reached the zenith, but I have not.

As January comes to a swift close I don’t know where my month went. I changed to my second host family lest week and to be perfectly honest, I was worried. But as soon as I got here I realized that I love this family too, I mean I still have a special connection to my first host family because, well, they were my first and I stayed there for almost 6 months. However, I am doing very well at this house, I love my room and my mom is so sweet, this family is very different from my first, where they live, how they operate, their schedules etc., but I like it.

Things seem like they are getting smooth, my understanding of Thai is getting smoother (listening to fast conversations or instructions – I still have a hard time when people mumble or talk very softly but hey, I have the same problem in English sometimes) I can read lips sometimes even. I feel like while life is getting a little bit more lazy, that it is making things smoother, haha, that doesn’t make much sense. It might be the rain that is making things temporarily this way though. We have recently had a week of unexpected rain, the weather has been so crazy here lately. It is supposed to be the cold season from November to the end of February, however, we have not seen a drop in temperatures until about two weeks ago where it only dropped to about 60 or 65 degrees F. And then it started raining for almost a week straight when we aren’t supposed to see rain again until June, when the rainy season starts. I was excited to see the rain at first because I honestly missed it, but now I am aching for a little sunshine (but as soon as the sun comes back I know I will be cursing it haha.)

Christmas and New Year’s here was great. On Christmas I received a package from my sponsor club in the States (THANK YOU BARTRAM TRAIL ROTARY CLUB!) and it was awesome to receive little pieces of home. =D I also received a package from my friends and family that had a few needed items as well as a few Christmas tree branches. This was one of the best things I received, it smelled (and still smells a month later) so, so awesome! I passed out little pieces of it at school, to teachers, students, my family and let them smell what a real Christmas tree smells like, because they do not have evergreens in Thailand. So that was awesome, and then my exchange student friends and I took turns just smelling the branches all day haha. This is also the first time that I have been to school on Christmas day, and that was pretty interesting. For Christmas dinner we went and found a real Italian restraint and ate real pizza, which was almost a Christmas miracle itself. =D And after that we went dancing, the first time I have gone dancing on Christmas as well, but it was so much fun.

For New Years Eve we all went to the new big mall, Central Plaza, and watched the count-down from there. Our New Year started 12 hours before the New Year in Florida though. =D After the count-down we all went to a hip-hop party that a friend was having and we danced and watched rap battles and dance-offs until the sun came up. We then went home and crashed, later I went with my family to visit older relatives for New Year’s Day and receive their blessing for a healthy and prosperous new year.

One thing that I do miss is public affection, even just hugs to family members. If it was socially acceptable to, I would just lay my head on my mom’s shoulder at a restaurant or give my little brother a hug because he is just so cute sometimes. I feel a part of the family enough to do these things, like I would in the states. But showing affection here is something that is reserved for behind closed doors. I mean it’s ok, that is culture, but sometimes I just have these thoughts and then I have to remind myself. =D

Also, I reached a new level of family-membership the other day. My first host mom told me that her web-cam was broken so that she could use it but the person on the other end couldn’t see her clearly. And I immediately thought, “Mental note, pick up a web-cam next time you are on that side of town.” Then I stopped myself and thought, “Holy cow, this is something I would do for my family in Florida and here I am in Thailand being a real daughter, cool!” I didn’t want to buy the web-cam because I thought it would make them like me more, or because I thought I needed to pay them back for hosting me, I just saw a need and wanted to meet it because I am their daughter (don’t worry mom, I am still your daughter too, just the English speaking version). =D I love having moments like this though and as my 6 months left quickly turned into 5 months left I have realized that it is unfortunate that it takes almost the whole exchange to have frequent moments like these with host families and new friends. However, I have already made a plan to come back soon so the relationships formed will only have the chance to strengthen while I am in the States rather than weaken and fall away.

What else was it that I wanted to say? It might sound a little cliché but I have felt so much older and wiser lately. (I am of course still a little kid who loves to play and be silly sometimes…) but at the same time I feel like I am over-due to enter the world of adults (or at least the world of college). This year has already made me so much more prepared to live on my own, to manage my own money, to know how to schedule time and yet still have fun while doing all of these things. I came to the realization a couple of months back that if I can do all of these things in a language that is not my mother language, or a language that I have not entirely mastered yet, I can certainly do these things in English. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I am perfect at these things, but I am a lot more competent in them than I was before I came to Thailand. =D

On this note I would like to thank Rotary for this experience. And know that I do not just say this routinely, but as a real gesture of thanks because without you, none of this year, these relationships, or this maturity would have been possible. So thank you. Thank you mom and dad in Florida for financing this year and for your permission to go so far away for such a long period of time, I know that was not easy for you, but thank you! =D I have put new pictures up on my flickr site of our most recent adventures. Yours truly, อารีย์

March 8 Journal

During the month of February, every time that I looked at a calendar I got depressed. “God, when is it going to be over?” I kept thinking, I mean it is only 28 days. But I can’t exactly put my finger on why I kept thinking this. I’m not miserable, and I don’t want to leave by any means, I just found myself being very frustrated and always feeling not quite myself, whether that be pains or aches or just that weird feeling of hovering through existence. But now that it is early March already I want February back. I think that this is honestly the biggest Catch-22 I will ever experience. School ended last week for us and now we have a three month summer vacation (school will re-start the last week in May). And while this may sound awesome, it leaves such a big hole haha. I mean 8am-4pm everyday is free now… WOW! But the good thing about this is that I can come and chill with my first host family whenever I want and just talk with them about everything under the big-bright-hot-as-you-know-what sun. =D I really love them and while sometimes I do feel frustrated or just drained because of the heat, I really love Thailand, more than I can put into English at this point haha.

This month was pretty busy. It started out with a weekend of Regional Debates at KKU (the university in my city). It was fun, the debates were in English so we had a very unfair advantage but the people we were debating against and with were excited to be competing with us. And it made me really happy actually that we were far from winning at the end when the results came out. We were given topics that were about the area of Thailand that I am staying in, Issan. And this allowed the exchange students to learn a lot more about Thailand, Issan, politics and environmental issues here etc. But after two full days of debating, my head honestly hurt because of remembering English grammar and big words. =D It did however make me realize that I need to keep trying very hard to improve my Thai, because if I tried to do that in Thai, I would not have been able to get past the first issue. I mean, my Thai is okay… but it has just been okay for a while, it has been some time since it has grown much. I can explain my feelings and some other things more accurately in Thai than I can in English but I think that is just because Thai has more accurate descriptions for those things in general. Reading is also improving a little but it is so-so as well.

This year the Chinese New Year was in the same weekend as Valentine’s Day. That doesn’t usually happen but it was an interesting weekend because of it. For Chinese New Year, my family is half Chinese so we went to both of the Chinese Buddhist temples in the city. The first one we went to was SO crowded. What you did was you take a cooked chicken, duck and a piece of pork and put it on a table with a glass of whiskey, oranges and different Chinese sweets. You leave these here while you light incense and walk around the temple to all of the different shrines, kneeling or sitting on your haunches at each one and raise your incense between both hands to wai while making a wish, saying a prayer or hoping for good things. Some people even have chants, other times there are monks there in the temple already chanting. A VERY cool experience. After you place one stick of incense at each shrine until you have gone around the temple. Then you go back to the items you left and wai with each of those, three times each (three is a very significant number) and leave taking the items with you, throwing a paper type thing into a fire that is continuously going. We then went to the second temple and did the same thing, afterwards getting a picture taken with the dancing Chinese dragon. We then went home and I found out the next day that the food is then usually eaten, like a feast the next day by the family. And for the next few days you could hear fireworks going off every now and then, like you do when the 4th of July is getting near. Also that weekend, on Valentine’s Day, we went to a family reunion. It was my second host mom’s extended family all at my aunt’s house. There were 40 people there and all of them were wearing matching pink T-shirts that said “<3 r-ma” basically meaning “we love grandma”. The elderly, like in many (especially Asian) cultures are still very, very respected here. There was 4 generations there and it was kind of neat to see how everyone interacted together and to try to figure out who was whose kid and whose brother or sister etc. =)

We were invited to go to a Thai wedding this month as well. And as it turns out it was not the real wedding, it was only the engagement ceremony, but it took 3 or 4 hours. We had to dress in the traditional Thai style for this kind of engagement and wow, you need to see pictures of this. I felt like a fairy-godmother-pirate with a silk skirt, it was close to impossible to move in the thing haha. But hey it was fun to play dress up for a while and take a ton of pictures. We even got money for being there because it is Chinese tradition to give money to family (like the kids) at New Year and also to guests at weddings, and it was both! The groom-to-be was from Shanghai, China and the bride-to-be was Thai but they met in England while they were both studying there… whoa. He couldn’t speak any Thai and they will be living in Shanghai but it was cute.

In the past two weeks, another exchange student came to visit our group in Khon Kaen; she is from Spain and is staying in Bangkok and her name is Catuxa. By the second or third day that I hung out with her I really felt that I had found another long-lost twin. It is really eerie but we totally clicked and we are SO the same! So I have yet another place to visit: Brazil, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Thailand (again of course) and now Spain! She left to go back to Bangkok the other day but I will definitely make some time to go visit her and she is coming back to Khon Kaen once again too. We both got our hair braided, a few corn-rows on one side and left the rest down and it’s awesome. We also both have a LOVE for cooking and learning new things to cook, we both love to be ridiculous and joke about everything. And she just has one of those personalities that you can’t be upset around. As soon as you get around her you can’t help but just feel so happy and excited for life. She is truly an amazing person and friend and I am so glad that I met her.

This past weekend we had a District Conference for district 3340. I have to admit I wasn’t really looking forward to it because I didn’t know what to expect really. (I just thought of endless meetings that I only half understood…) But it ended up being one of the best weekends I have had in a very long time. I got to see Twang, my Thai friend who was an exchange student at Bartram last year, and hang out with her, which was really really great. I also got to meet and actually get to know the other exchange students in my district and I am so excited to be going on the trip with the ones that I met later this month. One of the most exciting things that happened this weekend though is that one of the outbounds for next year from my club here, is going to FLORIDA!!! I cannot wait to see which district she is in and it will be sooo exciting to visit her while she is there and speak Thai with her and everything! =D

The conference really taught me to not judge people before really getting to know them and also to be tolerant of the people that you figure out you don’t like after getting to know them. Thailand has made me very verbal in the way that I feel and just speaking my mind, because a lot of the time people around don’t understand the English that you use. But being around other English speakers made me realize again that I can’t just say whatever I want whenever I want because it can very easily create sticky situations. (I am glad that I came to this realization before going back to the States.) The inbounds and outbounds from my club in Khon Kaen did a traditional Thai-Isaan style dance. We have been practicing everyday for two weeks and it was a lot of fun despite the moments that we didn’t really want to go to practice. I will hopefully be able to put up the video online soon. We dressed in the traditional Thai style and had about 3 pounds of make-up put on our faces, along with a lot of glitter. And the best part is that you dance with no shoes on, so there is no fear of falling or tripping or anything in complicated shoes.

At school, before it ended we were doing a lot of extra cooking classes with our teacher because she knew that our friends would be studying for exams and everything. It is so exciting for me though because I have learned and written down how to cook a lot of different Thai dishes like green curry, a traditional Thai soup, Thai desserts and a lot of other things that don’t really have English names. =D This weekend I ate a fried cricket and a red ant egg-filled omelet. The cricket tasted not bad, but not good enough to eat another one, somewhat similar to an old moldy potato chip I would say. And the omelet was good until you found out what was in it and then it was good as long as you tried not to think about what you were eating haha. The actual red ant eggs were white and oval in shape, about as big as half a pinky-finger nail.

The other day was a special Buddhist holiday here called We-sha Ka-buu Cha (rien tien). It was really cool actually because what we did was go to the biggest temple in our city and take incense, a lotus flower that hadn’t yet opened, a special candle and light the candle and the incense, walking around the temple three times. And while you walk, you think good thoughts, wishes for well-being for yourself, others etc. And the whole time you are walking you are surrounded by so-many other people, the monks in the temple are chanting and the environment it creates is really quite surreal. What you want to do is close your eyes, wai and let your mind wander without you controlling where it goes, letting it explore things that it hasn’t yet known exist. I don’t know, I probably sound crazy or “too-western minded” but it is as awesome as it is hard to explain. You leave the temple feeling peaceful though. I do enjoy going to temple here and I only wish that I could know about it at a deeper level that I don’t think is reachable with my current vocabulary.

The heat makes you feel alive in ways that I can’t describe. I mean yeah sure, sometimes you feel like you are going to faint because it is so hot, but it’s got something almost magical to it. As North Americans we would read a book about someone who lived in the Tropics and constantly and predictably think every time that the people in the book were “less” than we were because they didn’t use air-conditioning, because they just sat in the heat that was so overwhelming all they could do was sweat, talk, sleep and sweat some more. But this kind of heat and this kind of environment really makes you think, gives you the time to think and I think that it inspires you. It drains your physical energy but it at least makes you contemplate?

April 16 Journal

Well, I officially have just about two months left here. It is such a weird thought, don’t get me wrong I do love it here but at the same time I am so ready to be home too. I just got back to my city the other day from traveling in the south of Thailand with my family from the States. It was awesome in too many ways to count! I went and picked up my parents and my little brother in Bangkok, it was so surreal to see them again, especially here in Thailand. My brother is no longer “little”, he is still three years younger than I am but he is taller than my dad and has a bit of a beard going, haha. And mom and dad, well they were still mom and dad. =D We spent a day in BKK and then we all took a bus to a town in the south called Krabi. And the whole time I had to keep reminding myself that they couldn’t really understand what was going on around them like I could. It felt weird to have them depend on me, but at the same time I was so glad that I could be that person instead of them getting a tour guide or something. It is kind of a difficult concept to explain I guess. And my brother and I grew so much closer over the 10 days that they were here, we just sat and talked and talked and talked about so many things; me really feeling like the big sister finally taking up her role and being able to relate with school and life and friends. Cool really.

So we went to the south and stayed about 300 yards from the beach. I know that isn’t exactly a change of scenery for my family because we are from Florida but I haven’t seen the beach in over eight months, plus the beach in Thailand is so, unexplainably beautiful! We went SCUBA diving near Phe-Phe Island and we saw turtles, anemones with their clown-fish inhabitants, lion fish, and so many other things that I never even knew existed! It was really a great experience, and our dive guide was Thai so that made it cool that he could speak Thai to me about diving and English to my family, or I could translate if he didn’t feel like repeating information. We hung around the beach and went shopping in all the cute little shops, I took my family to eat Thai food until they were asking me if we could “please eat Italian or something else tonight?” haha. =D I had brought my computer too so that I could show them all of my pictures from this year so far and that was fun, just showing them everything and answering all of their questions. It was also pretty unique to warn them of the differences in social culture here; tell them about monks, all of the formalities but at the same time explain to them how relaxed and “sabai” everything is here and how genuinely nice and helpful Thai people are.

Earlier this month, my school had its prom. I didn’t know that Thai high schools had a prom, but it is much, much different from the prom that high-school students in the States know. First of all, the prom here is only for graduating seniors and their guests (dates), and second it is more of a sit and socialize and take pictures event. There is music but there is no dancing, well they did have a couple of groups do cover-dances of some Korean hip-hop songs but that was an organized competition. They do have a theme though, like in the States, but here people actually try really hard to match the theme. This year it was the color pink, and one of my friends borrowed a pair of hot-pink skinny jeans from his mom, found a hot-pink button up shirt and pulled it all together with a pair of hot-pink sneakers. It was the best outfit there and all I could do was congratulate him on his creativeness (and on his ability to wear his mom’s pants haha). =D And while I was so glad to have the opportunity to go to prom in Thailand, at one point I was sitting at a table just watching all of my classmates and friends up and around chatting and having the time of their lives. It made me really think, not that I don’t belong, but that I was glad that at that moment I was just sitting back and watching. Because this was THEIR moment. They have just graduated high-school, they are getting ready to move off in all different directions and they deserve this, they need this, unadulterated just to congratulate each other on a job well done and bask in their moment. I know how that feels, I graduated last May and I was reminded of that joy of accomplishment and freedom. I can honestly say that those moments were some of the happiest moments I have had in Thailand, just watching their excitement and their happiness bounce around the room in various shades of the color pink.

The weather right now is in the height of the hot season, above 100 Fahrenheit everyday, around 42 Celsius the other day even, whoa! I am just grateful for cold showers, rooms that do have A/C, water-water-water, and baby powder. =D

One thing that we did this month also was go fishing, but this was not your average get a pole and some worms and go to the river, fishing. We went mud-fishing, with our hands! It was one of my top ten experiences in Thailand so far. And I have never, ever been that dirty in my entire life. All of the inbounds this year and the outbounds for next year went (about eight or nine kids) and at first all of us were a little hesitant because we had not been told that this was the method we were going to use to catch fish. We pull up to this huge mud hole, almost as big as a football field that was about as deep as your upper-torso at the deepest point, mostly the mud just came up to your hips or waist. But we all get out of the car, take off our shoes and walk hesitantly down to the mud, and no one really wants to get in except for me haha. =D So I decide to go for it and I start to walk in, by my third step I was stuck in thick muck up to my waist, the only way to get out and get to the middle of the mud pond was to crawl on my hands and my knees, like they do in those army movies. Just thinking back on it I am chuckling, everyone was watching and I was laughing so hard that I was just getting more stuck. We ended up catching a few fish too small to cook, but some guys who were also out there (who do this for a living) helped us out and we cooked up some pretty large ones and it made a tasty lunch! We went swimming in the river afterward to get at least some of the mud off of us, but I know I took more than one long-long shower when I got home that day. =D

The other day, there was a funeral. The grandmother of one of the members of our Rotary club had passed away and our club, including the exchange students, went to be there for her. I did not know the woman who had passed away so I felt a little out of place there, but Thai funerals are very different from North American funerals. To start with, there is more than one ceremony or event to attend. Since Thailand is a Buddhist country most bodies are cremated, but before they can be cremated, the family and friends of the deceased have to pray over the body and insure that they will have a favorable re-incarnation. So the exchange students and I just sat and observed, there was the usual chants and incense and I wish that I was able to understand it but not even the Thai people do. When they chant, they chant in an older language called Pali, which to be honest a lot of scholars do not even understand. This is the first day, everyone gathers afterward to eat together and visit with each other. And the second part is a few days later. The second part is much like the first except that the people who came to the funeral go and give offerings and pay respect to the family while the monks are doing the chants. There are large wreaths of flowers everywhere, donated by different people and businesses and again, after the ceremonial part everyone gathers together to eat. Thai funerals are a very unemotional event. Death in Thailand is not mourned publicly like it is in other places, death is more of a matter-of-fact thing in which everyone understands that when you get to a certain stage in life, you die. When Thais mourn their loved ones, they do so in private so as not to affect others in a negative way.

Recently in Bangkok, I am sure that some of you have heard about the “Red Shirt” Party and their political protests. I would like to explain what is going on for those of you who don’t know and also those of you who already have heard about it because there is no room for hyped-up information. Everything right now is going fine, there is no reason to worry about anything because as of now the situation is still very peaceful. What has been going on is that the red party has been protesting and peacefully demonstrating in Bangkok since early March against the current political “yellow” party. The red party is a party originated from my area of NorthEast Thailand (also known as Issan) and they are backed my a man named Thaksin who was banned from the country by a military coup (led by the yellow party) in 2006. So Thaksin runs the red party from outside of the country and is currently the Minister of Finance for the Cambodian government. The red party is calling for a re-election, they “stand for” democracy and want their fair shot at a chance for political power. However, the demonstrations that the red party have been placing have been getting slightly more serious as of late, for example; the red party got a lot of their people to donate blood (some of the donators were even bribed to make their contributions) and the party then obtained fire trucks and sprayed the blood all over the Parliament building and the Prime Minister‘s house. Even this was considered peaceful (although quite disgusting) up until the other day when the red party forcefully broke through the gates and into the Parliament building. After this happened the Thai Government officially declared a State of Emergency in the Bangkok and surrounding areas. Things have semi-settled down within the past week but for a while there was fighting. A few days after the State of Emergency was declared there was fighting between the troops and the red party in which 21 people died and over 840 were injured. Currently there has not been any other “big-news” though.

From April 13th-15th was the national holiday of Songkran Festival. This is the most anticipated and celebrated holiday in Thailand all year long. It is the celebration of the Thai New Year and the reason for its un-paralleled popularity is because for three days straight people stop working, close shop, head to their home cities and go into the street to throw water all over each other! It is honestly the most fun holiday that I have EVER experienced, better than Christmas, your birthday, the 4th of July, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter and St. Patrick’s Day combined. No Joke. Three days before Songkran even began you would be walking down the street or riding open-air public transportation and you would all of a sudden be soaking wet with water, only to realize that people had started throwing buckets of water into the streets early. =D But once Songkran began, wow, I don’t even know how to describe it really. All I can say is that it was literally a party in the streets for three days and three nights with no breaks. People set up huge metal drums of water in front of their houses or in the back of pick-up trucks to hold water in so that one could easily dip a bucket in and throw endless amounts of water on perfect strangers. It sounds kind of crazy to the western world I think but it is sooo much fun and after your first encounter with a splash of water, it is impossible to wipe that toothy grin off of your face.

So what we did was get in the back of our family’s pick-up truck with all of my little brother’s friends and ride around town, through the streets with all of the other pick-up trucks throwing buckets of water at the other trucks or at the people out in front of their houses, especially on people who were still dry or had already dried off. =D At one point we bought huge blocks of ice to put into our drums of water so that when we splashed people, or squirted them with water guns it would feel similar to taking a shower in an igloo.

Another key part of Songkran is baby-powder. It is a tradition that started with baking flour back when there was no such thing as baby-powder, and what you do is you smear it on your face and the faces of everyone around you. And it’s not uncommon for you to be walking down the street and someone you have never seen before in your life walks up to you and smears a handful of baby-powder on both sides of your face while wishing you a Happy New Year. It is shocking at first, especially when you have been in a country where public displays of affection (ie: hand holding, kissing, hugging, etc) even between friends and family is semi-frowned upon, but after the first day of Songkran one gets used to it. We got home at night and were completely exhausted but still so excited and energized, covered from head to toe in white baby-powder and soaked to the bone with water. You shower, eat, go to sleep, wake up the next day and do it again!

This description does not even do the holiday justice, I had it described to me so many times by former exchange students and Thais but I never expected it to be what it was. I know that I want to come back for next year and I have already planned that if I cannot, I will be celebrating Songkran in Florida some way or another. 😉

I would like to thank Rotary International, Rotary Youth Exchange Florida, and Rotary Thailand for the absolutely amazing year and opportunities that I have had and am having during my exchange to this wonderful country. Thank you for making this exchange possible and for continuing to give other students the same opportunities. I am about to go on a trip sponsored by my host district here in Thailand for two weeks and I cannot wait to see what is in store for me and the other exchanges that will be attending. After that I will be moving back to my first host family (YAYYY!!!) and shortly there-after school will be starting up again. Time really does fly, it only seems like a couple of weeks ago that I was marveling that I had already made it 10 weeks in my new country and I couldn’t fathom having nine more months to go… but here I am, nine months down and around 10 weeks to go and I cannot grasp where all that time went! To my family and friends at home, just two more months. =D To everyone else here in Thailand, I am trying not to think about the tiny amount of time I have left here, but I plan to make the most of it. So watch out Thailand, here I come, you can call me อารีย์ because that is my name.

May 18 Journal

Every host family needs to take their exchange student on a short trip in the beginning, middle and end of their exchange without any other exchange students. I am grateful that I am getting this opportunity but at the same time, I wish one like it had come sooner and made me realize sooner (help me to compare those parts of my exchange and the stages of my relationships) that I am not an exchange student but I am their daughter, their sister, and that it is real. I feel like I have been in this family, not from birth, but from adoption as such a small child that I cannot remember a time before this. I really love my family and this is almost more home to me than Florida. I do not want to leave this nest, I am not ready to fly on my own again but I realize the necessity of it so I must just walk to the edge, close my eyes and go for it.

That being said, yes, I am back at my first host family. Times now since I have been back have been my most happy moments of this whole exchange year. While everything is getting so busy with realizing all that I have yet to accomplish in the remaining month, I can come home and sit with my mom and just be at peace. I can smile and we can go to the temple and I can momentarily forget that I have to leave here so soon. I am still so torn when I remember the time left, I miss Florida, my friends, family, but I do not want to leave Thailand. I want to smush the best of both worlds together. Like a little kid who takes two Oreos, pulls them apart and then sticks the two halves that still have the cream attached together, creating a super-stuffed Oreo! Unfortunately though, Florida and Thailand are not Oreos and thus, that is not possible… =(

I would love to tell you all about my adventures on the Rotary trip that I took last month after Songkran, but right now I feel like it would be too much to put into this journal. I have to save some of my stories to tell when I get home, right? =) In a nutshell though, it was fantastic! It was great to meet all of the other exchange students again and really get to know them this time, to spend two weeks with them and get close to some and stay acquaintances with others. I really love that group and we had an awesome time making memories as we went through Koh Chang, Chantaburi, Koh Samet, Pattaya, Amphur Wha, Ahyuttaya, and Bangkok. And we did everything from snorkeling to temples to a lady-boy show haha. =) I have A LOT of pictures up on the flickr site that you can look through and the beach was sooo gorgeous, I cannot wait to go back.

I was actually invited to go with my host family next week and I am more than excited about that. I just got back from a trip to Bangkok with just my mom, dad and little brother. It was great, we only spent three days there and we picked up the new car but we also went to see Wat Pak Gaeo (The Grand Palace) and The Temple of the Golden Mount. We went shopping until we were all hot, exhausted and ready to go home, lol. And I love my exchange student friends here in Khon Kaen but it was awesome beyond explanation to be with my family without them around. This is the first time I have done something like that besides the everyday routine at home. And it give time for reflection, to learn more Thai (because there are not people speaking English to you all the time). So I am very excited to go with my mom and my grandma to the south again and just spend time with them. =) I had such a ridiculous smile on my face this whole weekend because of the time that I was able to spend with my family just as their daughter and there were so many moments that my eyes were open to that just confirmed to me that that is what I am. Also, when we drove into Khon Kaen last night I just kept thinking, “I’m home! We’re home! Ahh, home, home home!” =) As a family we were home.

Something that I have learned in the past month though is that it is good to be a careful and worried person sometimes. You give a soft impression and don’t step on too many peoples toes at the same time. And when you are just being serene and cautious (not a push-over) it actually gets you far because it lets people open themselves towards you and that in turn enables them to start forming the bonds of love and real relationship, bonds that lasts. Thailand has taught me, just go with the flow, things will work themselves out… but at the same time do not let yourself be taken advantage of.

I do apologize for the choppiness and the non-relatedness of this journal but this is how my brain has been working lately. I hope that it makes at least some sense and isn’t too “all over the place”. I did have a thought the other day though that it is quite unfortunate and angering that I am just getting to the point of reading more efficiently and now I have to leave. I know that it will slowly dissipate, just like my speech abilities, but perhaps there is a way I can practice that as well until I come back (which will hopefully be soon!) I want to thank everyone again who was, is, and will be involved in RYE. You are helping to change lives and also to sincerely change the world through it. You may not see these changes but your students and the people that they meet will know, there is something different about that girl/boy. Perhaps like some conversations I have had, people have changed their perceptions of America drastically, realizing it is not how Hollywood and reality TV make it out to be. That people who live there are made out of the same flesh and bone as they are, the only difference being that the idiots of our society are usually the ones who are the unofficial international representatives, watch out the world is watching.

I have a Thai heart. There is a pride that runs through the blood in my bones, a pride different from the average teenage pride, a pride much different than “American” pride. This is the pride of being not only Thai but essentially of being Issan too. Of finally becoming one of my people! As I write this I feel sad because as much as I feel this in my heart, people here and in the States as well see me and think the exact opposite. Yes, I am a “foreigner” who can eat spicy food, but it is more than that. They will never be able to see that I see things and feel with the same limbs that they do. That I yearn for the chance to help in the rice fields at least once because I know now what a special, honored task that really is. And again, writing this, knowing that you who speak English will read it, I know that I am already judged. Even the Western part of my brain is screaming at me, “What are you typing, are you crazy?” Because (no offense) most western-born people cannot understand this and these yearnings of my heart. Like why I want to live in a little apartment in Bangkok, continue my travels around the world, spend at least a year in India, and be fiercely independent while at the same time being hopelessly dependent, with my blue eyes wide open to the world and its people. I may sound absurd but I do not apologize, I was going to but then I realized that not only did this need to be spoken but it needed to be read as well.

Gabrielle’s Bio

Hey there! My name is Gabrielle Ceballos, but you can call me Gabby for short. I am a 15 year old sophomore from Matanzas High School. Recently, I just found out I was accepted to the Rotary Exchange program and couldn’t be even more excited! A year ago, I thought to myself I would be sitting in the same high school just with different teachers the very next year. Never in a million years would I have thought I would actually be leaving to go to Denmark for a year! This is by far the biggest experience I can gain in my lifetime and I am ready to just absorb everything like a ginormous sponge :D.

I moved to Palm Coast, Florida about 10 years ago via Santiago, Chile and my birthplace of Connecticut and it definitely has been an experience. Meeting new people and residing in a new place can be rather interesting when you first start out, but things can only get better and they certainly have. Just as my new experiences with moving to Palm Coast, I can’t even begin to expect what new adventures and exciting experiences await in Denmark! Thank you so much Rotary for this life changing opportunity!

Two wonderful and amazing parents have raised me along with my older brother, Ryan. We are the Ceballos family and always will be. We are all spunky and fun and I wouldn’t change us for the world! If you ask a couple of my friends, they can probably agree with the fact that I am the one girl that will just randomly break out into song or random dance moves. Even a funny face or two you can sometimes get at the most random moments. Lacrosse is the sport I love and is one of the of the things that brings me a lot of joy. Some of my other hobbies I can add is my avid bookreading, rookie quilter, drawing, music listener (even my sad attempts to belt a song), movie lover and quoter, and some other things that can bring a great big smile to my face.

Laughter and smiles is one thing that I need in my life. The love of adventure and new experiences makes life even that more amazing. The next year in Denmark is the next chapter in my life that awaits me. I am so excited to start this super epic adventure! Yay!

Gabrielle’s Journals

September 12 Journal

When I close my eyes at night to sleep, I start to think that when I wake up everything is going to be a dream and I will still be in Florida, still in Palm Coast, and not experiencing the year of a lifetime. But then I open my eyes…..and I am in Denmark. One of the most amazing places I have ever been in my life. From the first day I got here on August 2nd, I had a feeling that the minute I walked off the plane everything was going to change and never be the same for me. So far this has proven true with my first MONTH of my exchange already over (which makes me sad thinking how I have to leave this beautiful place sooner and sooner everyday!!!) and what an A-MA-ZA-ZING time it has proven to be!!!!!!!

My first day in Denmark proved to be very adventurous since I met with a counselor from Rønne (John Anderson, who was super nice!) who then took me to meet the other exchange student going to Bornholm (Bridgitte from Nevada) then off to Bornholm we went. We ended up having to take a drive over the bridge to Sweden, then onto a ferry, and then eventually I met my counselor (Henrik) and off to my new home for the next 6 months. I love my host family and can’t imagine being with another family (Gert, Vivi, and my 17 year old brother, Tobias)! After finally being able to sleep after more than 24 hours without it, I continued to explore Nexø for the rest of the week until I had to leave again for København for language school and then Jylland for intro-camp.

Meeting EVERY SINGLE exchange student in Denmark proved to be amazing and I am so excited to see them again in October. When I finally returned to Bornholm, I got to start school which has proven to be one of the best times even though it is school. It’s rather nice having everything being so chill and relaxed and of course being with such great people as classmates. It certainly was a situation to adapt to at first, just like day-to-day routines. But being an exchange student, I have learned to adapt and do it all. I now have a daily routine that has become surprisingly easy to adapt to but I love it! But anyhoo, you start to realize some things just like Morgan said while you are here in wonderful Denmark:

Almost everybody smokes

There is no air conditioning, not even in most stores; you just open the windows and doors

You see bikes EVERYWHERE (but it is amazing – biking everywhere is fun!)

Some of the houses are older than the United States

Bread is eaten every day with almost every meal

The bread is absolutely amazing

The road signs are very different (not many stop signs since people do it themselves)

Fish is loved very much by the Danes (including herring, one of the most interesting fish I’ve ever tasted)

Overall, Denmark is simply amazing

This whole experience is already underway but yet it still feels so surreal and just like a dream that it’s hard to think I am actually here experiencing everything. You literally have to rid yourself of all fear/anxiety and take a giant leap and hope that you can land on your feet. Even with that sounding difficult, it is the one thing that is completely and utterly worth it. There is never a dull moment and always something new to experience. You get to experience life and actually start to see what you are made of. Even for just being here over a month, I can already tell that this year is literally going to be the most amazing year.

And I can’t wait to see what the next couple of months have in store.

November 29 Journal

So it has been a mighty long time since my last journal and A LOT has been happening in the past couple months! I have now been here in Denmark for about 4 months and so far everyday has been a new adventure. Without Rotary, I would never have gotten to gain these new experiences and have the opportunity for it all and I thank them very much for it. As we say in Denmark, Mange Tak (Thank you very much)!!!

Since the last time I wrote, a lot of things have been happening here. Even for being on the small but incredible island of Bornholm, many things always seem to be happening and taking place every day. School so far has been an interesting but good experience. Almost everyday I get up to get on the bus and start school at about 8:30. It’s nice though to not have school start until around 10:15 on days when I have a free first period which always feels good when I get to sleep just a little bit longer in the morning. But so far, my class is amazing and they are some pretty cool kids and have made things a lot of fun! They always help me and teach me things in Danish to try and say (which is progressing). They love when I try so I’m attempting to speak more and more even though I sometimes think I’m saying things completely wrong! But I can understand more and more everyday which is a huge plus.

The rest of September honestly seems like a blur since the month went by so quickly. It was filled of just school and hanging out around the island and exploring the area as much as possible. One thing that can be noted for September to even continuing now is how COOOOOOOLLLLD it is getting!!!!! It has truly been a while since I’ve been in cold weather and it just continues to get colder but even while shivering, it’s ironic to think how it is still warm in Florida probably and then here it’s freezing. But it’s also a breath of fresh air feeling the cool weather day to day.

October was actually a very busy month with fall break and also the AMAZING Holbæk Halloween Get-Together that Rotary threw for us. It was so much fun getting to see all the other exchange students again and getting to have so much fun. Definitely some of the costumes just made me smile whenever I saw them. That weekend for sure has given me some memories that won’t be forgotten. It’s always sad saying goodbye to all the others but it also makes seeing them again that much better J My class also had a visiting class from Spain come stay with us for a week which was a lot of fun! It was interesting to see how they were also getting to experience what I was experiencing and they were some pretty cool kids. Can’t wait to see them again in April when we go and see them!

November = Cold, fun, and Thanksgiving in Denmark! For the first time in years I actually got to see snow!!!! It was amazing seeing the little snow flurries and getting to stand outside and see the snow falling. It’s been the only day that it has snowed but it was for sure a memorable experience. My mind was blown when I also looked at the thermometer and saw it was only 1 degree Celsius that entire day (about 32 degrees Fahrenheit)!!! We expect to see these types of temperatures throughout December which shall be interesting. Believe me when I say that it was a sad day when I had to retire the flip flops….so sad. I actually had to start wearing shoes which actually proved to be interesting. But I’ve expanded to boots which keep my feet comfy and warm on the coldest of days J (being from Florida, I do miss my flip flops and can’t wait for warm weather to wear them again!!!)

I even got to celebrate Thanksgiving with one of the other exchange students’ family. Kyle’s (North Carolina) host family had never experienced Thanksgiving and wanted to taste ALL the food. I was lucky enough to be invited and I got to help Kyle cook a Thanksgiving dinner for us and his family and their friends. It was such a great time and even gave me a little piece of home when helping making the dinner since that’s what I do with my mom every year. But it was a fun time and helping his family experience an American Holiday J We also had another get together, but only for my district (Copenhagen, Bornholm, etc) and Rotary threw us a Thanksgiving along with having many Rotarians and families to join all of us. The exchange students also had to provide entertainment for the night for everybody and of course there was singing and dancing of all sorts for the night.

But so far that’s been my exciting couple of months and unforgettable experiences. I’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime and am so grateful for even being given the chance. My life here in Denmark is so different in so many ways. I’m given the chance to actually make decisions, do things myself, and also just to live life to the fullest. I’m changing even if I can’t quite see how but I know in some ways I am and also just having my mind just being expanded even more everyday with being here. I have been here almost 4 months and they simply have been the most amazing months of my life thus far. The rest of my year here in Denmark is just going to keep being amazing and I wish it would never end. Time sure is flying and I only wish it would slow down!!!!

Can’t wait for the upcoming months and more memories to come but I guess for now until next journal … Hej Hej!!!! (Bye!)

February 15 Journal

Wow. So finally past the half way mark…..and just wow. I can’t even believe that the time has passed so quickly and my time is growing shorter and shorter here in Denmark. And thinking about that just breaks my heart. I have learned to completely immerse myself into a new place, with new faces and places, and adapt and actually feel at home. Everything has just been so amazing that it doesn’t seem real. But then you wake up and realize that it is and that just puts the biggest smile on my face realizing that I’m experiencing this. Even getting the chance to experience this. Sooooo mange mange mange tak Rotary 🙂

But anyhoo, so far we have leaped into 2010 (whoa), I’ve moved host families, and have been experiencing non stop snow. Honestly, at first you love the snow…..but then slowly begin to loathe it especially after falling so many times :P. It’s been sooooo cold, definitely not Florida weather I’m used to. Even with the cold I must admit that the snowball fights have been well worth it as well as just messing around with the snow!! It’s just even fun to say snoooooow…or as the Danes say SNE!!! Even some of the days there have been snowstorms that have shut down the entire island of Bornholm!!! So I have watched many movies and drank much cocoa during those days. Spring time hopefully will be here soon and the sun will come back again! (after what seems a million year hiatus)

I also moved host families and my new one is amazing! its actually funny how they have the same humor as my own family so it will be fun watching how they are with my family when they come to visit. But other than that, it has been chill.

School is school and seems to be getting better with the language barrier everyday as I understand more and more everyday which is great so I’m not sitting there confused every second. Still love my class and have for sure made some good friends to come back and visit in the next couple of years. It is interesting how the Danish Gymnasium system works and I think I actually like it. Other than taking the bus at 7:30 (yikes) it’s all pretty great and an experience. But other than that, I have an upcoming trip to Spain in April with my class which will be amazing!!!! So I’m uber excited for that and getting the chance to celebrate my birthday with my class while there.

As time progresses, we live and we learn through experiences. And this exchange year has certainly been that so far. Advice to the new upcoming outbounds, be ready for your life to ultimately change and for yourself to grow in ways that you never would dream of. To grow in ways that will help you day to day and to experience every little thing while on exchange and to take it in stride. I can say so far, I will never forget this year and everything I’ve experienced since it has been some of the best times I have ever had.

All I can do is continuing to do is document my exchange and just say til next time Florida 🙂

😀

May 16 Journal

So 9 months later and only 59 days left to go!!! Time has really flown by and I haven’t even noticed it. I’ve experienced so much and seen so much in the past couple of months that I know I would have never even experienced if not for being here in Denmark. It’s hard to swallow actually having to leave Bornholm and everything that is now becoming normal to my daily life. I know I’m not the same and that in reality, I’ve grown and changed in so many ways. Everyday is an adventure and a fun one at that and I love life day to day more than I have in years.

Who can say honestly that their family’s travel plans were changed because of a VOLCANO in Iceland erupting? Not too many people…..other than Rotary exchange students 🙂 But other than a volcano prolonging my family’s visit to Denmark, they eventually arrived and I got to see them for the first time in 9 months!!! It was weird at first seeing them since the only time I would see them was via webcam on skype (thank you internet) but actually getting to hug them made me soooooo happy.

But I got to show my family around the small but amazing island of Bornholm for about 2 weeks and they seemed to really like it. I even got my mom to try Herring which is a specialty of Bornholm and I was mighty impressed she actually ate it since not many people like it. But they got to experience A LOT of Danish food thanks to my wonderful host families and also 2 weeks of the nicest weather that we’ve had since last summer!! It’s funny because as soon as they left the weather just turned right back to cold and gross bringing back the use of the winter jacket. I even got to show them around Copenhagen and around other parts of Denmark and it was great getting to just talk to them face to face, especially my brother. When I had to drop them off at the airport it was really sad but I surprisingly didn’t cry. I think because I know I’ll be seeing them so soon it didn’t really impact that I was saying goodbye again. But at least next time will be hello 🙂

OH!!! another a-ma-za-zing adventure was going to Spain with my class!!!!! Probably hands down one of the best trips I have ever taken. It even was during my birthday so that was pretty sweet. Kind of weird being in a totally different country for my birthday but my class made it really special so I was soooo happy that I have such great friends to make it a great birthday. I can definitely say I will go back to Spain sometime. It was such a beautiful country and experiencing it all with my class made it even that much more great .

But other than those recent adventures, we have Euro-Tour coming up in about a week annnnnnnnnd its going to be epic. Can’t wait for it.

The only down side to having all these things happen, if there is any, is that it shows me just how much little time I have left in Denmark which is a very sad thing to think about. Even with the time winding down so quickly, all I can do is enjoy it day to day and live it all to the fullest which is of course a very possible thing 🙂 So much to experience in such little time, oh jeg elsker dig Danmark. Rotary of course is to thank for every single experience I have had since being in Denmark. Without them none of it would of never been possible nor would I of even been able to dream to it being possible.

Tusind Tusind Tusind Tusind Tak Rotary 🙂

Helen’s Bio

Hello. My name is Helen Parker. I am 14, turning 15 on August 11, 2009. I spent my freshman year at Episcopal High School of Jacksonville. I am very excited about the trip that I am going to take this year to Brazil. It is going to be an amazing experience and I know I’m going to enjoy it. I am mostly an only child, I have two older brothers, but they’re half-brothers so they have never lived with us. Their names are Jacob and Jeremy. My parents, Fred and Suzanne, are also excited for me to leave. They will miss me as I will miss them but we’ll all get over it.

I am a very active person. I really love to play sports. I play softball for school. I am a shortstop and look forward to softball season all school year. I’ll be skipping this year’s softball obviously because I’ll be in a foreign country. I also play volleyball. But the volleyball I play is more for fun than competition. Many of my friends are on the volleyball team at school and I play with them. My family also likes it because it’s a game for all ages. I love to wakeboard and skateboard. I’ve been skateboarding for a long time and just started wakeboarding a couple years ago. Even though I live near the beach, I have never surfed. I would like to learn though and many of my friends have offered to teach me. I love being with my friends and it will be very hard for me to leave them but, I’ll deal with it. We have sleepovers, go waterskiing, go mudding, and a ton of stuff. I really enjoy trying new stuff.

I’m very outgoing and enjoy talking to people. I’m working on learning Portuguese and I think I’m doing pretty good. It will be hard but I’m ready for the challenge. Thank you for this amazing opportunity.

Helen’s Journals

August 31 Journal

August in Brazil. Very different from an American August. First off, here in Brazil we have opposite seasons from the US. Like, summer in Brazil is winter in the US. So I got on a plane July 31st sweating from the Florida heat, and arrived in Brazil wearing multiple jackets. Most of Brazil is not cold. Brazil is actually known for its heat. But I was placed in an area of Brazil that has cold winters. The mornings here are on average 9 degrees Celsius. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit but it feels chilly.

When I first got here I did not have school because there was a swine flu outbreak. I luckily had been emailing my second half-host sister before I left so I spent this time with her and her friends. I call her my half sister because August 21 she left for Germany. Her year exchange with Rotary. I got to meet many of her friends though, so it’s not like she left me all alone.

I started school August 15th. Another awesome thing about Brazil is that their school year is reversed from the American one. So in November I get off school for summer vacation. YES. 2 summers. That’s right. School is nice for me. I really like it. I don’t understand what the teachers say because they go too fast but the other students I can continue with a conversation… most of the time.

I feel like I’m learning Portuguese really fast. Like I can already communicate with my host family and the parents don’t speak any English. In school I’ve made some friends and been to some barbecues. The barbecues are very fun. Every single meal has 50X more meat then the meals in the US. It’s crazy. We eat 2 different meats, usually beans and rice, and some vegetable. The food here is SO good. They fry anything they feel like and I eat whatever I feel like. This is a problem. Actually September 7th I start swim practice. I’m going to start swimming competitively (not well) for the club my family is part of. I look forward to being healthy.

I’m doing my homework in school and have taken a test already and got one of the highest scores in the class. Ya that’s right. Highest scores. J I’ll write next month and tell you how everything is going!

December 18 Journal

Hello RYE FL. I know it’s been a really long time since I’ve written but I’ve just been really lazy. Sorry. So Brazil has been amazing for the last 3 months. I switched families in November and I prefer my second family. They’re great. They always take me places and try to show me more of Brazil that I haven’t already seen.

I speak mainly Portuguese these days. My host mom and brother don’t speak English that well so even If I wanted to speak English I couldn’t. I only speak Portuguese to my friends and other exchange students, except for the Americans. I just need someone to understand my slang. I miss it. My Portuguese has gotten really good. I’m almost fluent, and I am really close to thinking in Portuguese. I only speak English with my host dad. I’ve asked him a thousand times to not speak English with me but here in Brazil, only the rich people speak English, so when someone speaks English they really want to show it off.

I got out of school December 8th. School doesn’t start back up until February. It’s summer break. In Brazil the seasons and the school year are opposite from the states because it’s the bottom half of the world. So on the 20th of December I’m going to this really nice beach called Florianopolis. I’m going with my family. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m going to surf like every day and finally get a tan. I’ll get back January 3rd. then 10 days later I will go on the Belo Brazil northeast dream trip for 30 days. This trip is going to be so much fun. All the exchange students from my district are going on it. We’ve only lost one exchange student so far this year. He was a German and he didn’t break and rules but he just didn’t like Brazil. We were all really sad to see him go, but if it made him happy, I suppose it was the right thing.

I’ve basically become accustomed to Brazil by now. It’s not all new for me anymore. But I seriously think that back in the states we should have more Brazilian restaurants. In Jacksonville, we have one but it’s a churrascaria, steakhouse, and it’s super expensive. We need like a chain restaurant or something. That sells traditional Brazilian food. Like coxinhas, a teardrop shaped fried thing. It’s usually about 3.5 inches tall and it generally contains either beef, chicken and cheese, or ham and cheese. It’s amazing. They should also sell pastels. Pastels are like, you take bread mix, flatten it out. Make a pocket out of it and put some kind of filling in it. Basically whatever. You fill it up about halfway, close it, fry it, then eat it. It’s so unhealthy but hey, that’s what makes it good! Brazilian sweets too. They have this thing called brigadeiro. It’s condensed milk mixed with something similar to Nesquik. Then they heat it up and let it cool. It get’s hardish then you roll it into little balls and cover it in cake confetti type things. I can’t explain it. It’s all soo godly.

Brazilian pizza is SO different. It’s like 50 times healthier then American pizza. And they don’t have ‘cheese pizza’ and ‘pepperoni’. They’ll put like chicken on pizza bread without sauce. I went to Pizza Hut here. It’s NOTHING like Pizza Hut back home. People actually dress up to go the Pizza Hut restaurant.

Clothes are really expensive here. But food is very cheap. Nike Shocks have to be the coolest shoe you can wear here. People LOVE them. You’ll find them for sale for what is equivalent to 250 American dollars. Sorry to basically give you a description of Brazil’s market but I find it SO different. I’ll write next month. Promise. Sorry about the delay.

Tchau from Brazil.

Helen

Jennefer’s Bio

Sawatdee kha! My name is Jennefer Neolan and luckily I’ve been selected to represent Rotary in Thailand! I’m VERY excited and especially grateful to have this opportunity so before I continue I must say thank you Rotary!

I am currently a fifteen year old straight A sophomore at Pompano Beach High School and will be a junior on my year-abroad. I’ve lived in the same house in Pompano Beach my whole life and ever since I can remember I’ve been interested in the world and its citizens around me; I’ve wondered how their lives differ from my own and how it would feel to be in their shoes. I knew from early on that the only way to discover the answer to my dilemma was to experience those people’s lives directly; this is when I decided to become an exchange student. As soon as high school came around, I immediately inquired about becoming an exchange student and Rotary appeared before my very eyes!

This adventure shall be the biggest of my life so far. The only place I’ve been to outside of the U.S. is Canada and it was only for four days with my family. I can’t thank the members of Rotary enough for not only accepting me into the program but also for giving me one of my top choices! Thailand, here I come!

Jennefer’s Journals

August 29 Journal

Ah! Where to begin?? I guess at the airport! 😛 I left the 18th of August surrounded by my family. I waved goodbye for the last time, not truly realizing I wouldn’t see them for a WHOLE year! I still can’t! From Miami to Washington, from Washington to Narita, Japan (SOOOOOOOOOOOO long!), and finally from Japan to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.

When I arrived at the “Meeting Point” at 11 pm on the 19th, I saw the welcoming committee! Bob and Sami, my new parents, members from the Rotary Club of Ban Phaeo, and a soon to be Outbound from Thailand headed to Germany. I felt so loved!!

We went out for dinner (really late dinner!) at a supposedly Thai version of “Denny’s”. Rice with duck, fried fish (the best for me!), and even chicken feet! I’m still too American to try it! We then continued to my new home. It’s so beautiful and peaceful! There’s a khlong (canal) in the back and it runs through the whole farmland. It’s a nice change from Pompano Beach!

Some time after my arrival we went to the market. So many smells (both good and bad) and goods can be found there. It was something I could never imagine. On the 24th I went to school. It was crazy!! I had to make a speech in Thai in front of the whole student body wearing a rather spiffy uniformJ. I was nervous but the students all applauded and giggled when I repeated it in English. When I walk in the halls I always hear “Jennefer! Jennefer! Hello!” I still don’t understand their “fascination”. My friend doesn’t either! She said she’s been going to that school for four years and no one ever calls her name. I come for four days and everyone’s calling mine! I don’t speak even 1% of the Thai language yet but I have made many friends already. I hope that soon I can understand what everyone around me is saying but even now I’m not too sure I can speak this tonal language. It sounds impossible to truly master. I guess we’ll have to see!

I guess that’s it for now! Time for lunch! Watdee! Bye Bye!

September 29 Journal

The heat has subsided, the sounds are like a flowing river, and I finally can say “I am Thai”.

YEAH RIGHT! It’s still hot, I still can’t speak Thai besides the basic “sawatdee” and “mai kao jai”, and I still don’t act like a Thai! Of course, it’s only been a little over a monthJ. Still, it feels like I haven’t made enough progress on this journey, both in reaching a peak in my maturity and in embedding myself into this wonderful and unique culture. Patience is truly a virtue…

ANYWAYS! Besides the whole language thing I’ve been making a LOT of good memories here. Along with the multiple trips to various markets in the area and visits with friends and family, I’ve been a witness to indescribable beauty. There is a park here which seems to have an ancient yet vibrant soul to it. It was made for the pleasure of the Buddhist monks here in Thailand. As if the mere size of the park and arrangement of the trees and flowers weren’t enough to wow you, there are several monuments reflecting the age and concept of Buddhism. My personal favorite is the Standing Buddha Image. As soon as it revealed itself from behind the trees, I was stunned. Besides its sheer size as it stands at over 50 feet tall, the knowledge of life and its marvels illuminates from the seemingly flowing robes of Buddha. Eyes cast down, palm outstretched, and foot extended, Buddha is truly at peace.

Another favorite of mine was the Hall of the Marble Pali Canon. The Buddhist “Bible” is engraved in marble tablets and spread out around the statue of the first abbot to ever reside in the park. Painted on the ceiling above the tablets is the story of Buddhism and its existence in Thailand. At the very end of the marble building, behind the last “page” of the path to Nirvana, is a scene even beyond those of National Geographic. It is the peace reached at the end of death, it is heaven.

After that breathtaking journey, I made my appearance at none other than the infamous Bangkok! It certainly holds a different kind of beauty, one exuding an aura more adept to that of a mindful child rather than an inspiring elder. It is new, playful, and crowded with thoughts of adventure and mischief. Yet it knows its place and acts accordingly, not mistaking its privileges for the freedom to forget traditions. The shopping there is fun! It’s more like sightseeing for me, seeing supposed fashion statements and seaweed flavored ice cream.^^ Ah! Thailand! I also went to the Prommit Film Studio in Ratchaburi with my fourth host family. Of course it was touristy but it was fun to be with my soon-to-be family. Later we went to a Rotary dinner on a sea side restaurant where I had something I never thought I would try in over a million years, fried frog legs! I hate to say it, but it tasted just like chicken! Aroi mak mak!

This afternoon, I learned a bit about meditation and even tried it with my host mother’s sister who is a fully ordained monk. She said that meditation is used to control the monkey, our mind, which usually jumps from one thought to the next, and allows it to concentrate on one point. She even said a well trained mind can read and control other minds! I’m gonna have to see that one for myself!

Now I am out of school until the 26th of October since here the semester has ended. Maybe I can learn enough Thai to understand at least 30% of my friends’ conversations by the time I come back. I doubt it though! This week I’m going to Chiangrai and Chiangmai with my school for five days, visiting Wats and monuments in the north of Thailand. I’ll write all about it when I come back! As for now, my bed awaits me! TTFN! Tata for now!

November 4 Journal

Thailand is the best country in the world. Whether in the jungle or the seas or even the mountains, there is always something extraordinary waiting to change your life.

I began this month with an amazing trip to two cities in the Northern part of Thailand, Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. The breeze alone could have made my trip remarkable but the temples were stunning. My favorite had to be the one that we unfortunately spent the least amount of time in (15 minutes to be precise). It was constructed twenty years ago by an art teacher and the result was so remarkable the king of Thailand came to its official opening. It was constructed with cement to provide a pure backdrop for its shards of glass. In the daytime, the buildings sparkle in the sun and at night they glow with the stars. So beautiful!

After the quick visits to several temples and a whole lot of shopping, I returned home only to leave again several days later to drive in the other direction, to the South. This trip was the infamous Rotary trip to the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket. All the YE, a total of 18 students, in district 3330, which includes the central and southern parts of Thailand, went. The students who reside in the central part, including myself, traveled by bus. Great fun! Once we arrived some twelve hours later we met up with our hosts that would house us for our stay. That night we met up with the other YE students and were told about the origins of the festival, its rules, and a quick overview of Chinese history since the festival is Chinese. We then saw a performance dedicated to the purpose of the festival at the shrine. The young lion and old dragon puppets were so cute!

We traveled around Phuket and visited several islands such as P.P. Island and James Bond Island. We went snorkeling, where I had a mini panic attack since I can’t swim, kayaking in caves, walking along the beaches, where I then learned how to doggy paddle^^, and best of all shopping! The best part for me was definitely the Phuket FantaSea Theme Park and Show. The show incorporated pyrotechnics and several animals such as elephants and doves to tell the Thai version of the creation of the earth and human civilization. A must see! The theme park was also enjoyable. The characters were colorful and the merchandise was especially cute. Not to mention the fact that there were elephants and a baby tiger!

All in all what made the trip was not only the excursions but the interactions between the RYE students. It was entertaining to see the similarities and differences with our adaptation to and views of the Thai culture. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

After returning from Phuket I had a pre-wedding and wedding party to attend. Lots of food and lots of singing! The best!

The 2nd of November was a holiday for the Thai people called Loi Kratong. Loi is “to float” and Kratong is a leaf cup. At night, usually after midnight, people float their usually handmade Kratongs on the rivers or sea to give thanks to the river for being calm and helping to water crops and provide water to drink and such. The Kratongs are usually made of banana leafs which the fish can later eat and topped with candles to light its way on its journey. They look beautiful when they are all in the water. There are also several parties and festivals to explore. I went on a boat with my family up and down the rivers. We also stop at a party near our home. So much fun! So much food!^^ I now officially love Loi Kratong!

Now, I’m back in school as the month long school break has ended and still having fun. Not learning much math and science, at all, but having fun! My language skills still aren’t the best but they are definitely improving. Now if the internet could just giddy up I think everything would be perfect! Till next time, สวัสดีค่ะ!

January 19 Journal

This journal marks the beginning of my favorite season, winter, here in Thailand! Although considerably warmer than your average snowy Santa scene, the weather here is akin to that of Florida’s, save the fact that it is a bit shorter in length and sporadic in the frequency of temperature drops. Nevertheless, it is a major improvement from the average day of inevitable heatstroke.

The month of November began with the infamous Thai holiday Loi Kratong. In the Thai language, “loi” translates as “to float” while a kratong is a circular object usually created with banana leafs and decorated with candles and flowers in various designs. During this festival, people place these usually handmade kratongs in the numerous klongs, or rivers, that flow throughout this country in order to appease what they believe to be the goddess of the seas that both created and maintain this wonderful nation. Accompanying this ceremony are usually festivities such as dancing, singing, rides, and the most frequent actions of the Thai people, eating! These all take place in the night close to midnight. I luckily was able to witness all of these events (and more) riding on the wings of the river goddess or, in simplified terms, my uncle’s boat. We, meaning my host father, mother, uncle, and two aunts, traveled the length of the major artery of our small town, stopping at the gala held in the marketplace every year. After stuffing ourselves with grilled skewered pork and vanilla ice cream and watching the featured beauty contest (which my friend won!), we continued on our heavenly passage, passing through the darkness and trials of life, catching glimpses of a pure existence illuminated by candle light, before returning to our starting point in the sinful yet awe-inspiring world of humanity. We then sent our own slivers of appreciation to the deity of the river before concluding our night.

The following week, I had the experience of a lifetime. I was able to speak with a head monk of Buddhism. His very manner, although expected, was still amazing to witness in practice. The calm that overwhelmed his being and reason for existence and knowledge on the broad subjects of humanity and religious matters was apparent from first glance. And when he spoke, all stopped to listen in hopes of catching a glimpse into the world of wisdom. It was an unforgettable event.

On the 29th of November I changed households, moving to a family with four immediate members and one extended member living in the house. I had one younger sister, aged 15 years, and one younger brother, aged 11 years, along with a mother and father. Unfortunately, I was unable to continue my intended three month length of stay for various reasons and have since moved on to my third host family, whom I absolutely adore! I have two older siblings, one of both genders both aged nineteen years, and three younger siblings, two boys aged twelve and ten years and one girl aged fifteen years. The general attitude of this large family is one of high spirits and vivacious energy.

Thus after traveling to Chiangmai once more, Bangkok multiple times, and parties dozens of times, one of which allowed me to wear a beautiful gold and crème traditional Thai dress, the year of 2009 has left me without an ounce of energy. So I bid farewell to that year filled with mystery and curiosity, amazement and wonder, love and satisfaction, and I welcome the New Year with open arms, ready and waiting.

Hollie’s Bio

“The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” Ben Stein

And I want this. I want to be an exchange student more than anything I’ve ever wanted, and luckily, I am graced with the chance to study abroad in beautiful Brazil!

Ola! I am Hollie Harrison. I am a senior at Buchholz High and have been in their Academy of Entrepreneurship throughout high school.

I live with my parents and am the youngest of three. My two siblings have moved out, gone to college and now have jobs. My dad and I are very much alike in that we are both stubborn yet very hard working. I am often called “Little David” because of our similarities. I have a dog and a kitten, both of which I love very much.

I have been in constant motion ever since I was little. From 5 to 10 years, I took many different dance classes and even tried out gymnastics and soccer for a year. At 10 years old, I realized my passion for swimming through swim lessons and have been a competitive swimmer ever since. We have 8 practices a week with a total of 20 hours or more.

I also compete in tennis and act in drama. For three years, I have been on the Buchholz tennis team. Also, I have taken theatre classes and acted in school plays, such as “Taming of the Shrew”, for my last two years.

Besides being a busy body, I love hanging out with my friends. We always manage to find creative ways to be together and enjoy ourselves. I love to be happy- so you’ll often find me laughing or smiling. I also enjoy writing little songs and/or poems, singing, playing with my pets, sports, etc.

“Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.” Christopher Morley

And I’m excited to see how aspects of life are different in Brazil!

Hollie’s Journals

November 4 Journal

There’s always gonna be another mountain

I’m always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be a uphill battle

Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose

Ain’t about how fast I get there

Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side

It’s the climb

The struggles I’m facing

The chances I’m taking

Sometimes might knock me down

But no, I’m not breaking

I may not know it

But these are the moments that I’m gonna remember most, yeah

Just gotta keep going

As lame as it sounds, Miley Cyrus has it all right in her song “The Climb”. I have had a rough start here, but from what I hear from Rotarians here, “The rougher, the better it is for me because the more I will grow”. I have to agree. Future exchangers, be ready for some of the hardest times of your life, but also some of the most fun and memorable moments of your life. In the beginning, there may be more downs than ups. But it will all work out in the end as long as you give it your all. This I promise you.

But wow!!! Three months in already….

The first day I arrived, I was in complete shock. We got off the plane and went through Brazilian customs, which was a breeze besides filling out paperwork in Portuguese. I was picked up and driven home. This is when I realized: “Hollie, you aren’t in the United States anymore.” The drivers here are like madmen! If only someone could have taken a photo of my horrified face and me grasping the car for my life as we drove past cars almost hitting them. The lanes here are so tiny. The cars here are tiny too, but sometimes, the lanes are too small for the cars! Most of the time, there is a motorcyclist driving between two cars! During all of this, all I saw were small houses with gates around them. This isn’t what I had imagined Brazil to be.

My second week here I went to Rio de Janeiro. It was a lot of fun and I got to experience all of the usual tourist things! I went to Corcovado and all of the beaches. It was so beautiful, and I had so much fun with my family.

I am happy to say that I have made some of the best friends that I could possibly make. God was definitely watching over me when he showed me to these people. They have been so nice to me and have helped me with their language and have taken me out as often as they can to show me their culture! One of my best friends here is Sarah. Her grandpa started Betim Rotary, the Rotary in my city. But this Rotary doesn’t sponsor me. I am sponsored by the Rotary of Belo Horizonte, and since they are far away, Betim Rotary has been so helpful and welcoming to me. Sarah invited me to her Sweet 15, which was amazing. She held her party in a rented place called “Versailles” and it was decorated with special lights, flowers and modeling pictures that she did specifically for the party. To get into her party, you had to have this mini invitation and then next to the door were people taking gifts. There was a candy bar! I had too much fun there! I will probably return to the United States fat! There were tables with food and more candies! She had hired a personal photographer and videographer for the party. Each person at the party had to leave Sarah a “memoir” on film. I learned that it is customary for the birthday girl to give out havaianas (sandals) to each of her girl guests. I got my havaianas which are of a special design created by Sarah. Sarah did the valsa with 15 boys, which is very common at sweet 15’s. Sarah also took me and another exchange student (Logan from Belgium) the other day to her Grandpa’s farm (the one who started Betim Rotary). We rode horses, swam and had a churrasco. It was so much fun and I learned that many people here in Brazil have relatives that have farms and do what we did often.

I didn’t like my school, Colegio Tiradentes, so Rotary moved me to a new school, PUC (a university here). I am studying “direito” (law). I have learned that college here is very different from back home. Students only take courses directly related to their major. That is all that is required of them. Also, people here aren’t nearly as serious about school as we are back home. Students get up and leave the classroom all the time and teachers don’t do anything! A majority of students cheat on the tests and make it obvious, and normally the teacher doesn’t do anything about it. Despite this, I love my school. The people in it are so nice and helpful, and the teachers are hilarious.

I wish all of you future exchangers the best of luck in interviews. Those of you that get accepted, know that you are blessed. This is truly one of the best experiences anyone can ever have. It really is life changing. I hope it rocks your world like it has mine. I hope you have many struggles so you can grow and learn like I have. Good luck and love from Brazil!

Beijos e abracos,

Hollie G. Harrison

January 10 Journal

It is Christmas Eve in Frutal, Minas Gerais, and it is as hot and humid as Florida’s summer. There is no Christmas music or decorations whatsoever- meaning yes, there really is NO Christmas tree. And the thought that keeps crawling through my mind: “Is Christmas really tomorrow?”

But yes, it is. Brasil may not have the Christmas decorations or music, but Christmas spirit still is here. People who don’t know each other scream “Feliz Natal!”. The homeless roam the streets begging for money, and they receive in the giving, Christmas spirit. Families are gathering, and churches are ready with a Christmas sermon. It may appear differently, but it still is Christmas. And the people here do this every year! Every year it is this hot for Christmas! This truly is a Brasilian Christmas, or at least, Frutal Christmas. I do not live in Frutal. I live in Betim, but my family and I travelled here to see my grandma and the rest of our family- something that hasn’t change for me, travelling to see family for the holidays.

For New Years, I experienced even more new traditions. For New Year’s here, people wear the color with the symbolism that they want to happen next year. Most wear white for peace, but because of the economic difficulties back home that is hurting my family incredibly, I wore both white (for peace) and green (for money).

As Rotary will tell you, homesickness DOES kick in around this time. You will want to be home with your family decorating your tree and doing your usual traditions. But, you have to keep in mind, that you do that EVERY year! You have done these traditions every year and will continue to do them when you get home. You have to think like this or your homesickness will really get to you. Not to mention, you will be here! Learning and creating new traditions! You can bring some of these traditions to your family in the USA when you return! How cool will that be!?

When I last wrote, I was in the middle of changing host families. My second host family is incredible! I adore them! We are a family of only girls because my mom and dad divorced. They talk nonstop, which has made my Portuguese DRASTICALLY improve. I have only been with them for a month and half, and many people have seen a strong improvement in my Portuguese. I understand almost everything now, and if I don’t understand, I am always able to understand when they explain it in Portuguese. I still have trouble communicating back because of trouble with verbs, but my family is patiently helping me with that.

Now, I am about to leave for 25 days to Nordeste (the Northeast of Brazil). I will travel all of their amazing beaches, many state’s capitals and their national capital- Brasilia. I am very anxious for this trip, especially since I will be turning 19 during this trip. At first, I was sad to be spending my birthday on a bus full of exchangers instead of my family here in Brazil and my friends here. But then I remembered how hard Christmas and New Year’s was for me without my family and friends back home in the US and I realized that the best people to see on my birthday were my exchange friends. Because they can help me the most on this day with homesickness. Plus, my family is throwing me a party the day after I arrive home from Nordeste. Never forget your youth exchange friends. They understand you the most, with everything. Though, do not cling to them. Be very weary of this. Many of the exchangers in my state cling to each other instead of making Brazilian friends. DO NOT BE ONE OF THEM. You came here to experience the culture, and the best way to do that is to be with the people from that culture! Not to mention, learning the language too! Because the other exchange students tend to grasp on to English for life…..

I know that the new exchange students have been chosen, know their countries and have their first orientation very soon! I want to say to you all: *do not let time pass you by*. Take advantage of every opportunity! Study as hard as possible! Because the less you know, the more jokes and other things you miss out on! You want to be able to live life as normally here as soon as possible! And you certainly don’t want to look back and say, “Man, I can’t believe I spent that time goofing off when I could have been doing something meaningful.”

Also, I read Grant Simon’s journal, and as humorous as it was, take heed in everything he said. It is all TRUE.

Especially listen to not being alone. Many exchange students have done that here and it has not had good results.

I wish you all the best of luck!!!

With love from Brazil,

Hollie G

July 12 Journal

My last few months in Brazil were still full of much adventure and curiosity. I travelled on the Nordeste trip, which took me all around the North-East of Brazil. I went to Tiradentes, a historical city not just for my state but also for my country. Tiradentes was named after a Brazilian military leader in the “Inconfidência Mineira” revolution. They wanted full independence from Portugal and to create a Brazilian Republic. However, when the plan was discovered, he was arrested, tried, and hanged. He has been considered a national hero of Brazil and patron of the Military Police in the state of Minas Gerais (my state). The city I visited was named in his honor.

I sadly had to leave Brazil a month early for college and family matters. Leaving all the relationships that I had built there was incredibly hard, but I know that I will see them again someday. Coming home, I was filled with many of the same emotions I felt upon leaving for Brazil: sadness of leaving loved ones, excitement to see my family and friends in the USA again and to have American food, and confusion and disbelief that I was leaving.

Upon my arrival home, all family and friends were shocked about how much I have changed. Even my appearance was changed. Although they were shocked, they have loved the changes.

I too have loved the changes. I feel more independent and more aware of my surroundings and others. I like being able to relate the USA and Brazil. It has certainly given me more perspective on matters.

I still can’t believe my exchange is over. However, the cycle continues for the new outbounds to go and experience as much as they can and grow like I did. I wish you all courage. Make sure to listen more than you speak. That will make you understand, learn, and grow even more. Most of us are used to interrupting and talking whenever we please. You must remember NOT to interrupt and to listen more than you speak. Calculate your responses wisely. You will be judged on every encounter and NEVER forget that Rotary smile!

Good luck and enjoy!

Rotary, thank you again for giving me this opportunity. It has been and meant the world to me! I cannot describe how thankful I am. I hope to one day repay you for your generosity. Until then, I’ll be spreading that Rotary smile and telling anyone who listens about you.

Beijos e abracos! (xo)

Hollie

Jay’s Bio

Hello everyone, my name is Jay McWilliams, and I attend St. Augustine High School, and I will be crossing the ocean to the opposite side of the world: Thailand. I’ve lived in St. Augustine for the 15 years of my life, and having never left the US, I welcome this opportunity with ecstasy and anticipation. I live with my parents, and I have one older brother who attends the University of Pennsylvania.

Throughout my life, things have always come in two categories: The tangible and the seemingly intangible. This opportunity being the latter for 14 years of my life, I still find it difficult to comprehend the vast chance which has presented itself. During my year abroad, I will do my best to not feel completely comfortable, as if at home. Following this principle would, I believe, help me to see how different this new world is, instead of searching for all that is similar.

Again, I would like to thank Rotary for all their support, and for giving me the opportunity to see beyond the horizon. This will, without doubt, be a pivotal year in my life, and I anticipate every moment of it.

Jay’s Journals

September 13 Journal

Sawatdee krap! I arrived in Lopburi, Thailand on August 1st. The day before had been a very long one, spent mostly a few miles in the air; thankfully, everything on the flight went smoothly. The jetlag that I experienced wasn’t too severe; the only real symptom I had of it was not being hungry. I hardly ate anything for two days after I got here, and I feel that concerned my host family a bit. But after the third day, I was recovered, and my appetite restored.

My family is one of the wealthier families in Lopburi. They own, and live on, a working saw mill. There are workers that come and go every day, and the front of the house is a store front. There is a guarded gate to enter the house, and guard dogs that they let out every night. There are multiple buildings on the property for the workers to live in, as well as a building that the family’s maid does laundry in. There’s a garden in the back which houses the dogs, as well as the biggest cat fish I have ever seen. I have two sisters who go to college in Bangkok, and one host brother that left two weeks after I got here to go to the U.S. as a RYE student. I was given a Thai name when I got here; it is Jindtanakan, which means Imagine. Most of my friends at school call me Jay, but some call my Lang (short for Falang, which means foreigner), while others call me Yong, which means curly.

Lopburi is one of the oldest cities in Thailand. In the downtown area, you’ll find ruins of temples, and palaces on almost every street corner. There is also a very high monkey population in Lopburi. Wherever you turn, there’s a monkey sitting on the side on the sidewalk, or trying to take whatever things you’re carrying. Elephants are also not a strange sight around town. Sometimes, you’ll see one playing the harmonica for money, while other times, it will just be walking along the road.

Transportation is Lopburi is easy as well. There are things called Sorng Taew, which literally means: two rows. They are pickup trucks with two rows of seats under a roof in the bed. Each one has a different color that goes on a different route, and you pay ฿8 (8 baht), or about 25 cents, to go wherever you need to go.

I started school a week after I got here. My school is massive, and has about 3,600 students. The only real similarity between Thai high school and American high school is that they have classes, and they learn things. My first day of school, I was told to introduce myself in front of everyone. I did it in both English and Thai, and they went crazy when I was finished. Every day at school, everywhere I go, I hear someone calling my name and waving, or someone wants me to kick their soccer ball, or to come sit with them and their friends. One of the stranger things I’ve seen at school was when I was sitting at a table outside talking with my Thai friends. A man who apparently worked at the school came over to a group of boys playing soccer with a stick, made them line up, and began hitting all of them with the stick.

I’ve seen some beautiful places, and temples. The town that I live in used to be the capital of Thailand, and there are a few giant sets of ruins scattered around the town, as well as tiny foundations, and old temples to be found nestled among the buildings in the street. One of the ruins is King Narai’s palace, a past king of Thailand. The ruins are sprawling and vast as they are beautiful. One weekend, I went to Ayuthaya, which is an ancient Thai city with some very unique things, such as the only smiling Buddha, as well as one the biggest Buddhas I have ever seen. It was about three stories tall, golden, and surrounding by thousands of tiny Buddhas on the walls. It was possibly one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen.

My Thai knowledge and speaking skills are still very basic, but I have already learned a lot. I am capable of having very basic conversations, and I know the entire Thai alphabet, and can read almost anything…it just takes me a little while. The way I learn Thai at school is very laid back. Whenever I don’t have a class, I just go to the teacher’s lounge in the language department, and whichever teacher isn’t doing anything at the time, teaches me Thai.

Everything is ridiculously cheap here. I can buy a shirt that would cost 40 dollars in the U.S. for 4 dollars. One night, I was out with my friends, and we went to a night time noodle stand. Between the three of us, the bill was ฿50, which is a little more than $1. It’s almost shocking how cheap everything is.

All is well, and I look forward with incredible excitement to the months before me. Thailand has exceeded my expectations 100%. I have a great group of friends, a friendly, loving and understanding family, and an open door to the world. I don’t think I could ask for more. Until next time…

-Jindtanakan

จินตนาการ

December 2 Journal

สวัสดี America! I know that it’s been a while since my last journal was written, and I’ve been fervently reminded of this. There’s a lot to recount, so I best start around where I left off.

My last journal was in September, not long before my 16th birthday. On my birthday, my host family took me, one of my best YE friends, and other extended family of my family to a restaurant to eat dinner. When we arrived, the restaurant was covered in police, and Thai army personnel. Our initial thought was that something had occurred which would not allow us to eat there. But upon further investigation, we discovered that the princess was coming to eat at the same restaurant! This was very exciting, and every once in a while we were able to sight her just walking to and from the car.

At the end of September, the school semester ended. It would start at the beginning of November again, but this left us exchange students with little to do. Most of my Thai friends went to Bangkok to study for the university, so I couldn’t go places with them. Many days over that break were spent at home, reading books or studying Thai. One day, my host mom took me and one of the other inbounds in Lopburi (Leo, from Brazil) to go to one of the many army bases in Lopburi. My host mother was part of a juvenile justice committee, and they were sponsoring some sort of corrections program for kids at the base. That day, friends and members of the committee were given the chance to zipline on their training equipment. When my turn came around, I ended up doing it wrong and just bouncing up and down in the middle of the line. This was a great source of amusement to a large crowd of spectators and Thai juvenile delinquents, but it was a good time.

Two weeks after that, all the exchange students had an event in Angthong province. It was more or less a handicraft camp for us at one of the local arts schools in Angthong, but proved to be one of my most legitimate Thai experiences thus far. What made it this way was the family that I stayed with. All of the exchange students stayed with different families (I’m still not sure where they found the families, or how they’re connected to Rotary), and every day from Monday to Thursday, our families would take us the school so we could spend the day making crafts, and enjoying the company of the other exchange students. We arrived on a Sunday, and were given our families.

Now, my family in Lopburi is fairly wealthy, and lives in an established, well known part of town, and has a fairly new and very nice house. Relative to my idea of a nice house at the time, the house that I was staying in was the opposite. It was a very, very old, traditional Thai house that stood on stilts. The upstairs was one giant room (save the bathroom) with a TV, two beds and a couple of mats on the floor. The floor was ancient, creaking wood with inch wide gaps between each board. The roof was made of tin, and there was about 6 inches of space between the roof and the wall, so there was no shortage of mosquitoes. Luckily, everyone had mosquito nets, so nobody suffered too much. The downstairs area was the “kitchen” so to speak. It had a large table that the family sat on to eat, a refrigerator, a couple fans to ward away mosquitoes and a TV. Noted, all of these things were outside, the house acting as more of a pavilion with a roof, but no walls.

There were two older women who very much enjoyed feeding me, as well as asking about America. The house was situated in small village that was situated among seemingly endless rice fields. The family consisted of two parents, the two women who enjoyed feeding me (their significance to the family, I may never know), and four girls who I’m not sure how they were related to the family either. Every day, when I would get home from the school activities, they would take me on bike rides to look at temples, or they would go help the host mom work in the market. When the host father found out that I was interested in Buddhism (apparent by the Buddha hanging around my neck), he enjoyed telling me about it, showing me his large collection of Buddhas, and giving me more Buddha necklaces. “To protect from ghosts” they would say. As I got to know this family better, I began to realize that they don’t live in poor conditions, and that all of this is normal life for them. And it became normal life for me, and within two days, it was like I’d been there forever. It’s amazing how these things that would have seemed to disgusting and incredibly foreign to me are now so normal.

At the end of October, we had the Loy Kratong festival, which is a Buddhist celebration of starting new, and bringing good luck. Loy, in Thai means to float, and a kratong is a small vessel made of banana leaves and flowers that are floated down the rivers. This is to symbolize starting new, and getting rid of old grudges and such, as well as bringing good luck. All of the exchange students went to a place called Supanburi for Loy Kratong, and Rotary threw a big party for everyone. We were given kratongs, and floated them all down the river. When everyone let their kratong go, we shot off fireworks, and enjoyed the band and food that Rotary provided for us.

Loy Kratong in Lopburi was luckily two days long, so we could enjoy it in two different provinces. The city closed down the round-a-bout in the middle of town, and provided many shows, and markets for everyone to enjoy. My favorite was the Muay Thai fights, which was some of the best live fighting I’d ever seen. Unfortunately, it is proving incredibly difficult to find a Muay Thai place to practice in Lopburi.

The day after Loy Kratong, school started back up again. The month of November was very uneventful, with school, and pretty much nothing else. But, my Thai has started to improve again (my lack of interacting with my Thai friends in October slowed down its progress slightly). In a conversation with my friend, I described my Thai as “advanced basic”. My ability to read Thai has improved dramatically, and so has my vocabulary. Most of the time, I know the context of the conversation, but half of the time, I’m unable to come up with a response, despite the fact that I understand what is being asked. I still find it incredibly hard to understand students when they talk to each other, because of the speed, and amount of slang they use. TV is also very difficult to understand, but I can participate in a dinner time conversation with my family. I’ve already had a dream and a half in Thai, and sometimes, for no apparent reason, my thoughts will switch over to Thai. Besides that, I’m still learning more and more each day, and it could all only get better.

I’ve already switched to my second family, and I like them very much. They own a Michelin tire store right in the middle of town, so it’s very easy for me to get around. They enjoy traveling, also, so I’ll be able to see lots of Thailand with them.

Until next time….

– จินตนาการ

February 10 Journal

The month of December was relatively mild. I’d switched families, and there was a festival at my school for about two weeks, so there wasn’t very much school either. I went to Bangkok to stay with a boy from Mexico so we could go see concerts, and hang out with Bangkok. Life in Bangkok is much different from small town Thailand life, and I prefer the smaller, quiet atmosphere. And for some reason, I find it very difficult to speak Thai in Bangkok, because most people speak English, and when I attempt to speak Thai with them they give me a “What is wrong with you?” look, and continue to speak in English. Though Bangkok is vast, I am very happy that I don’t live there, because of these reasons, and because it’s incredibly expensive to do anything there.

Christmas and Christmas eve were a lonely couple of days. I had nothing to do, and I wanted to do something to commemorate, so I went to church with my Catholic first host family on Christmas eve, who is also hosting my best friend here, Leo from Brazil. Though I don’t usually go to church, it was something on Christmas (despite the fact that it was boring). The next day, I went to a party with my family that was unfortunately a karaoke party (the worst, and most incredibly boring sort, I have decided). Then, I went home and skyped with my family in America for the first time, which was a nice Christmas present. That weekend, I went to Bangkok for four days to see a concert with my friend, and go to a theme park with a couple other YEs. Then, two Mexican boys came to my city, and stayed here for a few days. All of these events were enjoyable, and I was happy to have so much company when school was not in session, and I missed home.

On December 31st, I left with my family for Chiang Rai in the North of Thailand to celebrate New Years. It was a long ten hour drive up, but it was full of scenery, and I was fortunate enough to have the backseat of the rented van to myself. We didn’t arrive until late afternoon, but the first place we went was the very famous White Temple. It is a very prime example of Buddhist contemporary art, with depictions of hell, large guardian spirits, and a few other morbid images on the outside of temple that houses the main Buddha image. On the inside, there were classical depictions of Buddhist culture, as well as more modern (and at time random) images, including a picture of Spiderman painted on the inside of the temple wall. It turns out that the artist of this place is a very eccentric man who is a pioneer of Buddhist contemporary art. This temple has been over 30 years in the making, and is still far from finished. It is quite a sight, and the amount of time put into it is very apparent.

That night, we just went back to the hotel, and everybody went to sleep. There was no festivities, or real celebration among my family for the New Year. This greatly saddened me, and I yearned to speak to someone at home. So, after the year turned, I stepped outside into the very cold, very clear night to make a call. The stars were very bright, and the sky was also dotted with Chinese lanterns, set off by people for good luck, or something of the sort. I called one of my best friends in Florida (who was also still in 2009), and I got my friendship fix. I fled the cold mountain air and crawled into bed for the first time in 2010.

On the first day of 2010, it was very cold in the mountains of Thailand. For the first time in a very long time, I had to wear more than one layer of clothing to stay warm. I was informed that the first stop on today’s journey would be the golden triangle, which is the river that divides Burma, Thailand and Laos. I fell asleep in the van on the way, but when I woke up, I was greeted by a magnificent sight. From Thailand’s last shore, there was a giant golden Buddha sitting on a Chinese style boat. Beside the Buddha, there was a dockyard, and a little market where foreign visitors could come and buy little souvenirs. On Laos’s not-so-distant shore, there was a huge red building with a golden dome. I was later informed that this building is the Laotian immigration building. On Burma’s shore, there was a huge casino (I found this to be a humorous contrast between countries).

And so, my family and I boarded a little boat which would take us to Laos. We got off the boat onto a very old wooden dock, and made our way up to the mainland via an ancient bamboo bridge that seemed to be unfit for so many people coming to and fro upon it all day. But, we reached Laos without incident, and now there I was, in Laos. The market was more like a collection of little huts in this small area with its wares on old wooden tables. The ground was red dirt (Northern Thailand and the surrounding area reminded me of Georgia in some respects), and there were chickens and dogs roaming about the stalls and trees. There wasn’t a whole lot of things here, mainly cheap knock-off clothes, and strange old Laotian traditional items, like knives, and oddly shaped pipes for smoking. Also, snakes in bottles that you could buy “to eat” as my host brother informed me.

From where I stood on the bank of the river, I could see four different countries. With Laos behind me, China to the North, and Thailand and Burma to my right, I realized how much there can be in such a little area to see, and maybe just how big the world is.

We left Laos the same way we arrived, across the rickety bamboo bridge, and down the Mekong river. When we arrived back in Thailand, we spent a couple of hours eating ice cream, and sitting in the area of the large Buddha. At last, it was time to go, so we made our journey through the mountains with Laos and China at our backs, we were now heading to Burma. We drove right up to the border and got out of our van. Thai people only need a “temporary border pass”, but I had to get my visa changed so that I could get into Burma. We walked trough the border station, and beneath a sign saying “The Union of Myanmar” in English, and in Burmese. All the people entering were being funneled into another small gate area, the Thai people entering the through the middle, and foreigners entering through a small a smaller passage separated by a small fence. My host sister came with me though, to ensure all went well.

As we walked towards the exit to this entry area, we came across a Burmese soldier. Without saying anything to me, or my host sister, he grabbed my arm a pushed me through a door way into a small room with four other Burmese soldiers stood carrying automatic rifles. They weren’t saying anything, just looking at me as if they expected me to do something. All I could muster up was a tentative, and stammered “Yes?”. One man sitting at a desk started speaking Burmese, this only increased my confusion. I could hear my host sister speaking in English to the guard outside, and then he opened the door, and handed me 500 baht. Apparently, that’s what these people wanted, because when I gave it to the man at the desk, they opened the door and told me to leave.

After this, we entered Burma with no further problems. All the merchants could speak Thai, so there was no communication problem. My family informed me that the gate was to close at around 5:30, so I had to meet them at the gate at 5:00, but now, I was free to wander the streets of Burma as I wished. I walked around, and bought a few movies, but I wasn’t very fascinated by this market. Everyone spoke Thai, and most signs were in Thai, so it really was no different from Thailand. I had the urge to see Burma, not Thailand within Burma. So, as I was looking for a way to see other parts of the town that weren’t within the market, I saw one of the exchange students in my district (Julia, from Germany) with her family in the market. I found this to be an interesting coincidence, so we hung out in Burma together. Unfortunately, she didn’t share my same urge to explore the real Burma, so what I saw of this town was limited, but what I did see was all very different from Thailand. The biggest appeal to coming to this market was how cheap movies are. I bought four, brand new DVDs for 100 baht (about $3). But I think I annoyed the sellers when I only bought 4 DVDs, because all the other Thai people in the store were buying about 30 DVDs at a time (most likely to resell in Thailand).

Finally, it was time to leave Burma and head back to Thailand. Naturally, it was much easier to get out than it was to get in. When we crossed the border again, my family stopped in the large square and decided to do a little bit more shopping. So they told me I could look around for about an hour. At this, I began to find my way through one of the markets. Everything in this one alley I found myself in was so Asian, I felt like I was in a movie. I walked through the alley, and to the foot of a mountain with a large stone staircase going up to the top, with two dragons on either side of the stairs, their open mouths gaping towards the market alley. So, I began up the mountain. The stairs were wide, sometimes requiring two steps just to get over one of the steps. When I arrived at the top, I found a temple, and a few other structures. I took a quick look at the buildings, then found my way to the side of the mountain.

All there was to see from here was Burma, and the town that we had just left. It was a cloudy day, and the sun was just starting to go down over the mountains. The clouds that hugged the mountains cast bright colors over the two countries, and they provided me with quite a sight. I looked down at the country, seeing many small houses built into the side of the mountain, as well as a Spirit Village made up of small white houses and shrines said to harbor the resident spirits. Behind me on the mountain was a giant statue of a scorpion facing Burma, the significance of which I am not sure, but it added to the mystery of the atmosphere. Burma was a mystery to me, and Thailand is as well, and all I wanted to do now was to know the two places like I know myself. I knew then that I was happy, and where I will be happy, with unknown things on either side of me.

The next day, we headed home to Lopburi. I rested for a day, then returned to school. The weekend after, we were informed that we had a Rotary conference in Bangkok, and that we would be required to give a speech in Thai. This greatly stressed out many of the other exchange students, because it was rumored that those who did poorly would be sent home. I knew that this was untrue, but it motivated many to write a very lengthy speech into Thai. When we had the competition, there were a few who had quite obviously put a lot of effort into the speech, and a few who at a glance, hadn’t. I didn’t prepare a speech, but instead I went to the podium and briefly told of a few of my experiences in Thai, all of which was pulled from the top of my head. There were ten winners, all of which won a Rotary 3350 backpack, and three grand prize winners. I find myself in the backpack winners, but I was not a grand prize winner. This did not bother me so much, because the two winners had not written the speech themselves, but instead used their teachers, and online translators to write their speech, but these two things were not exempt from the conditions of delivery. But, I was untroubled, in fact I was very content with what I had achieved with very little preparation, as well as a few other YE students.

One day, my friend from school took me to a mountain, and told me that there was a temple at the top. I couldn’t see it, so I decided to take his word for it. At the foot of the mountain was a very large temple, and he said that there were stairs that would take us to the top. There were stairs indeed, stairs up a very steep slope. It took us about two hours to get to the top, and at times we were climbing the stairs vertically. But when we got to the top, the view was awesome. But the best part was yet to come. On the stairs, there was a handrail going all the way to the top. On the way up, we had bought two plastic sacks that once contained rice or something like that. From the top, we slide on the bags all the way down the mountain. At times it was impossible to slide down (namely, the vertical times), but it was still a very good time.

Over the next couple months, we’re going to go on the trips, and I will get to see a lot more of Thailand. School is out now until May, so things will begin to slow down and become more relaxed. I’m the happiest I could be here, and all is going very well.

Until next time

สวัสดีครับ

-จินตนาการ

June 14 Journal

สวัสดี Florida!

The months following my last journal have been eventful for me, as well as the country that I’m in. As you’re bound to have heard something about, last month, Thailand experienced some of the worst civil violence in the country’s recent history. It had been on and off for a few years, but this year was intended to be one of great importance. While all of this was going on, I received a large amount of concerned messages from concerned people back home who wanted to make sure that I was okay, and far from the violence. I was, at the time, relatively close to it, but never experienced any of it. The closest I ever got to it was driving through Bangkok with my friend’s host family on one of the most eventful days, and seeing the plumes of smoke from the bombs and burning buildings that had been set off. Other than this, any violence was very far removed.

The two parties are known as the Red Shirts, and Yellow Shirts. The Red shirts are the poor and uneducated “peasants” of Thailand that make up the working class, and most of them hail from the North-East Isaan area of Thailand (most Thais in my area speak the Isaan language, but are ashamed of it because speaking it puts them in the same rung as the Isaan people). What the Red Shirts want is to be given equal voting rights, and equal class under a more democratic system. The Yellow Shirts, however, disagree. Yellow shirts are the upper class, rich, educated, metropolitan Thais. Most of them actually come from Chinese heritage, and employ the Red Shirts. The Yellow Shirts believe that the Red Shirts should not be given these liberties because they are less educated, therefore, unable to make the proper decision. A large part of the debate is also the two leaders of the parties, Thaksin for the Red Shirts and Abhisit for the Yellow Shirts, but I chose to leave that out of this explanation, because some people try to make the argument all about the two men, when I believe that the real issue is what I just shed light upon.

It is truly a tragic situation which is tearing the country apart, forcing the Thai soldiers (many of the same rung as the Red Shirts) to kill their own people in a confusing and complicated issue. For the first, and most violent parts of the struggle, all of it was centered in Bangkok. As the conflict drug on, small Red Shirt parties started to pop up in the surrounding provinces of Bangkok. In Lopburi, they would begin to gather at around 9 PM every night in one of the central junctions in town. They would sit there all night, drinking whiskey and watching orators on a projector screen. One night, another exchange student and I walked down to their camp with the intention of trying to buy one of their flags as a souvenir. When I asked a man if I could buy it, he told us that we could have them, and handed us two bamboo sticks with flags waving on them. As we made our way back, a man on a motorcycle followed us, and made us return to the junction. The man who gave them to us had forgotten to warn us about Yellow Shirts (I didn’t know that there were any around), so he had us take down the flags and told us to stuff them in our pants. This was my only real face to face interaction with any Red Shirts, and they were all very kind. Mostly all of the host families here (Rotary, in general really) are Yellow Shirts, and it’s interesting to get their point of view of the conflict.

Besides the Red Shirt crisis, the months follow my last journal have been rather quiet. The two Rotary Trips took place in March and April, and I switched families in between. My family now is very relaxed, and are very good to me. The Rotary trips were good also. They took place in the North and South of Thailand. The South trip was filled with tropical beaches, snorkeling and boat rides, while the North trip’s biggest highlight was Songkran. Songkran is the celebration of the Thai New Year, and is basically a massive water fight. I, and all of the other exchange students woke up early, strapped on our water guns, and took to the Chiang Mai streets. We were splashed, squirted and doused by people riding in truck beds, kids with small buckets and crazy tourist guys. This went on just about all day until we finally were exhausted and collapsed back at the hotel. The rest of the trip consisted of looking at temples, riding elephants, and learning about Northern Thailand’s culture, and in the evening we were given the freedom to roam around the area of the hotel as we pleased.

One of my main goals this year was to learn to read and speak Thai. Now, I can proudly say that I am one of the most proficient Thai speakers/readers in my district. Many people refuse to believe that I am not half Thai, and that I spoke very little Thai before coming, and I am frequently complemented on my accent (or lack thereof), and have a Thai phone conversation is incredibly easy, as I do it daily with my friends. This being said, I know that there is still very much to learn. Thai is a vast language, with multiple forms of speaking, and a ridiculous amount of synonyms (the hardest part of the Thai language, I have decided). In my years at home I intend to keep studying Thai, even just a little bit, to learn more and keep up what I already know, so when I return, it will be even better.

Now, 11 months after leaving the US for the first time, I can say that I am a changed person. I’m bilingual, and more confident. I feel I’ve become more relaxed with things that don’t matter as much, and become more serious about things that do. One of the main reasons I think that our parents send us on exchange, as well as one of the main goals of Rotary besides the learning of cultures and having a more worldly understanding, is to learn to be responsible, and perhaps more grown up in a sense. We learn this to use it now, in our adolescence, as well as transferring easier into adult-hood.

But what I’ve observed is that as I, and the other exchange students that have learned this lesson well also learned another thing: what it means to be young, and how fleeting youth is. Through experiencing what it’s like to be an adult and make your own decisions, I feel we learned even more valuable lessons about how young we are, and how to rejoice in the fact that we are still young, with long futures ahead of us. Long futures that will soon become the present, but this is not near as intimidating because we have known what youth is, and that we’ll do our best not to waste it on ourselves. This comes hand in hand with the ever present looming mountain of adult-hood that we have also learned a tremendous amount about. And though, now knowing youth, it will be more dearly missed, the realization of how great a thing you have is also realizing that it will one day be gone, and therefore, adult-hood isn’t as much as an end, but just another beginning, as is life. Of all the conclusions that one could come to in a year far, far away from home, I believe this is the most important that I have stumbled upon, and it will forever be with me.

Now, as my final weeks in Thailand close in upon me, I can say with no doubt in my mind that I have fallen in love with this country, and its people. And, like so many other exchange students have pledged to do, I will do everything thing in my power to make it back here as soon as I can. Because Thailand is my home now, and I will miss it will all of my heart.

โชคดีนะ

-เจ

Juan’s Bio

Hej! My name is Juan Jose Barona. I am a senior at Cypress Bay high school and I am very excited to say that I will be an exchange student to Denmark!

I was born in February 29, 1992 (leap year) in Ecuador. I moved to the United States when I was 8 years old and I currently live in Weston, Florida which when compared to most other cities in Florida, is small. I live with my family of 5 which includes my sisters who were both exchange students to France and Italy. After realizing what a great effect this experience had on their lives, I could not pass on the opportunity which this program offers. I am very open minded to new people and places.

Unfortunately, most things are far from my city, but I always find something to do. I always like to keep myself busy because as far as I know I only have one life to live and I do not want to spend it watching television on the couch. Sports and friends are very important in my life. If I am not at school, I am swimming with my team at the YMCA in where I’m also a lifeguard. After work or swimming, I am at the gym working out with my friends. In the small amount of time that I spend at home most of the time I am either sleeping, eating (VERY important in my life) or playing guitar which brings me to music. I am always listening to my IPod whenever I have a minute. Whenever I don’t have anything to do, I watch movies or CNN which I find very interesting because I like to be informed of what is going on in the world which makes me appreciate the things I have in my life. In the future I would like to be an architect or a mechanical engineer.

I look forward to graduating from high school and going through what I know is going to be the experience of a lifetime. I am very grateful to the members of the Rotary Club who give their time and have given me this opportunity.

Juan’s Journals

October 3 Journal

WOOOOOOOOOOOOW

:DDDDDDDD

I cannot express how grateful I am to Rotary everywhere for making this possible for teenagers everywhere including me. The 86 hours of no sleep were worth it immediately when I stepped off of the plane. Admitingly I was in a way born into this exchange because of my two sisters having been exchange students but now I know that it was the BEST decision of my life.

I have only been here for a short time and I already feel like this is my home and I don’t want to leave. School is AMAZING – everyone is very friendly. My family is great. Ever since the first day I have felt welcomed. I have three brothers who teach me Danish which is slowly but surely progressing. I have seen incredible things like World War II original bunkers and giant cannons, to jellyfish in the beach which was freezing and I was convinced to jump into by my host brothers. The weather is a drastic change but the great experience I am having so far is completely worth it.

Again THANK YOU Rotary for everything you have done for me, any news will be sent to you right away!

Mange Tak,

Juan Barona

Jeg elsker Denmark!!!!!

January 31 Journal

January begins a new year, but for us exchangers the year began on our departure date. Five months! Cannot believe it went by so quick. Now I’ve seen the oldies who have gone back to their countries and it’s unbelievable that almost half my time here is over.

The past six months have been incredible. I’ve learned that the Danish culture is definitely different than mine. The holidays are now over; celebrations were a bit different, like for example the amount and size of fireworks every family buys. The sky was lit at 12 am on new years day – it was amazing.

The language has come a very long way, I can now communicate with anyone and I have just started reading my first book in Danish – Harry Potter hehe. I am currently SKIING in Norway with my host family and the skills have definitely improved for when I go skiing in AUSTRIA! I’m really excited about everything, especially now that the language is no longer a problem.

Gotta go to bed now another day of skiing in Norway tomorrow.

Sov Godt Florida!

Juan

Joel’s Bio

Heyy! I’m Joel and I was so excited to be selected as a foreign exchange student this year and even more ecstatic to find I am traveling to Brazil, my first choice. I am a junior at St. Johns Country Day School, a college prep school that has a 100% college acceptance rate, so it definitely provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully complete the next step into college.

I live with my mom, dad, and twin brother, Jake, who doesn’t look a thing like me… I wish. I love playing soccer and volleyball, but I prefer watching football because then I can paint myself blue and white with a bunch of friends and cheer on our tiny team. My mom is super chill and so is my dad, and both of their heads are turning gray, I mean they have to put up with twin boys! My brother Jake is one of my best friends no matter what I say sometimes, I know he will always be there to back me up or catch me when I fall. Seriously though, he is the starting quarterback and he could really catch me if I fell. Mainly, he is my bro and he is just awesome. Last but not least, my dad. He has bent over backwards for me, plus he is probably the goofiest guy you will ever meet, but when it comes time to be serious, he is a pretty good guy to talk to.

I have been playing soccer for most of my life, since I was four, and surprisingly 12 years later, I am still at it hoping to make it to the next level. I love volleyball as I said, but I don’t play competitively. Soccer and school take up too much time for that but I play whenever I get the chance. A lot of times the volleyball players at school say I should try out, but coach says that it would be way too much of me to be in that spandex! So I just stick to school soccer. I play club soccer and some of my best friends are on my team. Sometimes it is like I have more brothers.

I am also very involved with school. I am part of the Varsity Soccer Team, St. Johns Interact Club, volleyball club (started by my brother and I), and also the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I love doing service projects and helping people. Outside of school I am actively involved in my church and I am a certified lifeguard, soccer coach, and referee.

Some of my other interests include singing, any kind of athletics, eating, and this might surprise some people, but I absolutely love to shop. I love clothes shopping, my favorite store is American Eagle. My second favorite store is in North Carolina, but I often order from the catalogs. Can you guess the store? It’s Eurosport! There isn’t much better than opening a new pair of boots. Another hobby of mine is cooking. I love inventing new things for dinner. So far no miss hits!

There’s a little bit about me, some fun facts if you will, maybe something you’d find on the bottom of a Snapple lid a quick summary of me. Now before I wrap it up, I want to thank everyone who has made this experience possible and especially everyone who has helped me throughout my journey so far. Thanks mommy and daddy for always pushing me to pursue my dreams, and my brother for always being great competition for me, even though he must be slacking lately, and also everyone in the Fleming Island and Orange Park Rotary Clubs for putting so much time and effort into making this experience a life changer. Most of all, thank you to my future host families for having the courage and the hearts to take me in and assist me in my experience.

Joel’s Journals

September 2 Journal

It’s been just over a month since I arrived here to this wonderful city, Araguaina, this wonderful state, Tocantins, and wonderful country, Brazil. When I hopped off the plane at the dinky Palmas airport, I figured… “O, this is what I expected… I think I’ll head over to the belt and get my bags.” As I got my bags I was looking outside for a sign with my name with a bunch of people standing around it. Well, there was a sign, but a small one. It was an 8 X 11 sheet of paper with my name printed in 48 point font under a 3 in. Rotary International logo. I was kind of… surprised. There were men around the sign, too, but they all looked… confused. Until they all turned and saw the only non-brasiliero in the airport strolling towards them. When they noticed me, they sprang into life, all but jumping for joy. I was swarmed with man-hugs… all 8 of them. then I saw a boy with his Rotary blazer on too… I would soon learn that he was on his way to Mexico. We exchanged pins and we went our own separate ways, I with Andre, my exchange counselor, and he with the other guys from his host Rotary club. I threw my bags and blazer in the back of his small manual VW pick-up and we started the final four hours of my journey.

All the way he talked about himself, about Tocantins, and my favorite part… soccer! It turns out he is a really good player. When we finally got to Araguaina, there were loads of people out in front of a big Rotary statue holding a huge sign. As we drove up, horns were blaring… this is the biggest surprise. Andre and I walked up and were shrouded by a herd of people and pictures. This was very very fun. After an hour of chatting and trying to talk in Portuguese, Diego, Etienne, mae, e pai beckoned me to the car. We put my stuff in the trunk because we had somewhere to be.

It was a college graduation party. it was very different than anything id ever seen. This graduation party for his uncle was the first time I saw a Brazilian dance called foro. I’m learning. The next day we went to the farm. We played volleyball all day and went to the waterfall. That’s right, there is a waterfall in the farm grounds. I love it. It’s so fun to jump into the pool at the bottom. It is so great. I’ve gone three times and I finally got to ride a horse. We also had two concerts, Chiclete was the first and Jorge e Mateus was the second… they were very fun… and very crowded. My highlights so far have of course been soccer… I’m finally getting accustomed to the play here… it is very different from what I know.

Overall things are great. Thank you Rotary for all the opportunities laid in front of me and thank you Fleming Island and Araguaina Rotary clubs for all your support. Until next time, this is Joel Haznedl, signing off.

October 19 Journal

What an incredible past month and a half this has been… I’ve done so many things! I moved to a new family, I got to ride new horses, and I found my favorite one. He is white and brown and he loves to run, which is fine with me… even though when Monday came, I felt like I was kicked in the bum. My family also took me to aabb, a big club for swimming and various sports. I saw some of my friends there too and we played tennis all day… barefoot.

A few days later I would be leaving for my trip to Rio so I needed to get some clothes. I bought some jeans and underwear… it was very very expensive. Another thing… shopping here is much different, when they ask you what you want they take out literally every article within range of your size and lay it in front of you. It’s great!

Also, a great thing is my Portuguese is coming along splendid; I’m so excited to understand almost everything! Some people even missed the fact I was American… until they said something I didn’t understand and heard my signature catch phrase “nao entende,” which means I don’t understand.

Okay, so we finally left for our trip to Rio… our 36 hour bus trip… with loads of stops and days in between. We went to many cities… the only names I remember though are Brasilia, the capital, Rio, of course, and Ouro Preto… which means “Black Gold.” While in Rio, we went to a game… Flamengo v. São Paulo. Flamengo has the support of more than 30% of Brazilian population, and the rivalry is equaled only by Florida and Georgia. The game was so fun and was good because it was a “V” for Flamengo. We also went to the Christo and Pão de Açucar, both were excellent!

I met so many people too, I grew closer to people in my class and on our expeditions I met at least fifty Germans, a Swiss, former Rotary exchange student to Texas, and many others. With one of the Germans it was fun debating and conversing American politics. I find myself in political debates more often than not however. Some even get heated, one when I was at aabb, with a friend of my host family, he was getting hot and wouldn’t back down. Well I had to go and he swore in Portuguese. But it’s fun seeing foreign view of the republican, I haven’t met a single person that was pro-McCain. It’s funny, their limited view of American politics, yet they are still itching for a debate.

Also, while in Rio, I got a tattoo… well… I’m leaving it at that. Actually I am on the bus on the way back typing this. I think we’re going to stop in another city… great… I’ve already had to wash my clothes in a sink once. It’s 1:15 a.m. and I think I’ll go to bed.

December 7 Journal

OK… I have to admit… November wasn’t as difficult as everyone said, and boy am I glad for that! Now, having said that, it was tough. I loved all the Thanksgiving wishes but with each wish came a memory, a memory of home, a memory of family, a memory that stung my heart.

Another thing that’s been tough is the friends, always feeling the odd man out, always knowing you’re never THE best… Always second. On the soccer field, the good thing is the look on the other players’ face, but the bad part is when they tackle cleats up, every time. When they come in five times as hard on you, when they just mess with you till you can’t take it.

When all these things happen, I’ve learned, you just have to be yourself. Play your game and watch your step. The life of an exchanger is different than any other. We might hear about how hard the life is at home with our friends in high school, but they haven’t felt the solitude, the hardship, the pressure to do what we are asked, whatever it is. It’s very difficult to hold up, without mom or dad, always coming last… Dead last. Never the first, getting used to your family, or leaving a family you love near the same as your own.

I can officially say these first few days of December have been the most difficult yet. The first time I thought, “man, this next eight months is gonna feel like eight years… I need to get home, back to normal.”

I am excited for Christmas though. I get to go to Goiania which is a city in the state of Goias. It’s only about a ten hour car ride, but I’m used to it, going to Indy every Christmas and summer and sometimes Thanksgiving, 18 hours to grandma’s house.

Well enough for now, everything’s been great apart from the missing home. To the other exchangers, good luck and keep on truckin’. Thanks Rotary:)

January 7 Journal

In this past month and a bit I’ve seen some things, learned some things, and felt some things. These… ‘things,’ are the pieces that I know will put together the puzzle of my exchange, but not only my exchange, but me. These things, anger, loneliness, happiness, and togetherness. I’ve felt all these things in this roller coaster of my late November through December and on to these few days of January. This small composition will probably make some of you laugh, but the idea of this is to help prepare the future outbounds. This month has definitely been a fast, twisting, somersaulting, realization of life in general.

First thing ‘I’m gonna throw at ya’ is the anger, I figure to start with the ugly first so you’ll forget it by the end. There has been many times I got angry, whether my dad forgot me at school, or I got ditched, or even because I got stuck at home. The first one was being left at school, that’s a two mile walk, if you know where you’re going at least, but, I wasn’t too sure of Araguaina at the time. Well it was the afternoon session that ends at five and me and him had it set up to meet there at six. Now, I knew he was always late, so I figured I’d give him some slack, a thirty minute cushion. After the wait, I figured it wasn’t too long so I just hoofed it. I had taken this walk before with my good friend, Edwin, the Mexican exchange student living in Araguaina, so I thought I could make it back quick and easy. That quick and easy walk turned out to be an hour and fourteen minutes, forty-five of that in the dark and light rain.

When I got home, tired, wet, and angry, my mom saw the sarcastic smile on my face and asked where my dad was. I told her, “o, he’s at the farm, he forgot me at school.” I think that’s where I went wrong. The next day I didn’t say a word to him, not the drive to school, not the way home from school, not at lunch, not at dinner. Nothing. The thing was, he seemed oblivious to the whole thing, which not only surprised me, but, well it just surprised me. So I decided I’d talk to him the next day, it was Friday, so, I had to be nice. Well that was when he iced over. That soon came to not talking, “free” money, and not saying ‘no.’ Now some of you guys might see these as a good thing, and at first I tell you I did. It really felt like I had all the freedom in the world, like I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But I soon figured out this wasn’t the case. Take a second and think what is would be like if a parent didn’t say a word to you, not a word. After the excited feelings left I figured, wow, this is really bizarre, and I tell you it definitely was.

Living in the states I never looked at myself as spoiled, my parents talked to me, they said no, they didn’t always give me money, but that wasn’t a problem… I mean who wouldn’t take a fifty to go to a party or somewhere, where you won’t use it. But all that is just kidding, I never took the money, not because I didn’t want it, not because I didn’t need it. I didn’t take it because I knew that’s how he was trying to apologize. He was literally trying to buy my happiness. But when they say money doesn’t buy happiness, it’s true. All the money buys is something to add to your mask to cover how you really feel. But this offering was different, it almost felt insulting. I can’t explain exactly why, or what I was feeling, maybe it was resentment, maybe it was fear, maybe I just plain didn’t care, but the fact was I couldn’t take the money. I knew that the only way to make it right would be to talk to him, however, due to my feelings, I waited for him to come talk to me. If you were wondering, that rarely ever happens, and I’m sure I knew he wouldn’t come talk to me, but I just didn’t care anymore. So I let the time pass until the last few weeks in the house, after I was hanging with Edwin at his house nearly everyday. This was after I had completely disconnected with my host dad. He had started forcing me to go to parties with the family, well he had my mom force me. I think he finally figured I was mad and the only way he was gonna fix it was to talk and I think he was a bit afraid of the outcome, or he just doesn’t know how to talk about things like that.

I finally figured why I was going to all these parties. The first one I arrived and knew lots of people but the ones I didn’t he made sure I met them quick and talked with them a good while. So that’s what I did, at first I thought nothing of it, until his party for his office where it felt like I was the poster child for the customers he had there and for his boss. I noticed I was being forced into talking to people, ‘no ifs, ands, or buts.’ Once I figure this out I just dropped off the face of the earth. This was about 2 weeks or so before I moved houses. Edwin had left, but I’m still really good friends with his host brother and I do enjoy hanging out with him every once in a while. It came to the point where I was chillin’’ with Guto, Edwin’s host brother, everyday, and sometimes even night too. The last week in that house I spent few hours at home. I can honestly say the hours at home were for sleeping. I had two lunches in that time, one dinner, and short nights of sleep. Well, only about four to six hours a night.

The final weekend came and they were headed off to the farm, and he didn’t even plan on me going, which was great because I was offered to stay at Guto’s house over the weekend, but, my host mom wanted me to go. The phrase that finished it for me was when he said that I had to go unless I had any parties. Well what do you know, of course I did! I had three barbecues on Saturday and Sunday and he seemed right pleased that I had the plans. He didn’t even tell my mom until after they got there. I spent my whole weekend there, three nights and days. Friday night till Monday, night. I thought this was the coolest thing in the world because I was leaving on Tuesday, and some of you might scowl because at this remark, but, I absolutely could not wait to get out of that house. Now don’t get me wrong, my brother’s non stop talking was obnoxious, but bearable. My mom actually treated me like her son, which was pretty cool, even though I still had to make my own plate for lunch when I was there. I guess I was just little exhausted. The day to move came, my brother, I think is still rejoicing, my mom was crying, and well, my dad, I think he was indifferent. O well, it didn’t bother me anymore, but I finally got into my new house. Looking back on this whole thing, I can definitely say I’m still angry with him, but I think I should have looked at all this in a different way. I view him as the bad guy, and for one thing, he was, but I then noticed how much of a jerk I had been by not forgiving him. I don’t know what I was feeling – I think it was just that time, being around Thanksgiving and all. But the feud is over now at least, because I moved houses.

Loneliness, it started about the time of Thanksgiving. I started noticing that I had good friends, really good friends, but not one could I talk to about anything. When I say anything, I mean, AN-NY-THING. Lacking that I started thinking about what I had at home, and quickly realized that nothing could match, Ty, my best friend pretty much since I started at my school in tenth grade. I mean, I used to think about her everyday, and I missed her a lot, but I finally figured out how much someone like that means to a person. That’s when the loneliness set in. It got to the point where the only things I had fun doing were soccer, volleyball, computer, and watching people with just as much loneliness on “Two and a Half Men.”

This soon became the cause of my days, everyday, I would wake up and go to school, after school I would take a short nap or sign in to my computer. Depending if I had soccer or not I would go to soccer, or just wake up and get on the computer and wait. Wait till I could drown my loneliness with laughter at someone else’s problems. Even if they are made up, but grossly true. The point of this ramble is the fact that to not be lonely I was alone, day in and day out, with the blinds, windows, and door closed. I finally saw that I was still lonely. After all, the base of the word alone and lonely are the same, ‘L-O-N-E.’ The word ‘lone’, an adjective, meaning having no companions, being solitary, or single.

I found something that would help, the guy who had the most in common with me, after all, I’m an Republican American with blue eyes and light hair in a democratic environment where only around one percent of the population has light hair and/or eyes. You could definitely say I stick out like a sore thumb. The guy I decided I need to get close with doesn’t have light hair, blue eyes, or even light skin. It was Edwin. Right now you’re probably thinking… “What did yall have in common?” The truth is, except from appearance, everything. He is the other exchange student, he is away from his friends, he is away from his best friend, he is feeling the exact same things as me. This is when we started hanging out nearly everyday. I can honestly say he became my best friend… Definitely no replacement for Ty, but a pretty darn good fill in.

This is when I started letting the loneliness go. I started missing my shows and getting off the computer to hang out with him, I started feeling better, talking to him, and we both started getting way better. We are about as close I can get to someone who is not Ty. This is the thing that helped me the most. Not the synonym, being alone, but getting a “substitute.” I dunno if our friendship will last long after the exchange, maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but I hope it will and I know it’s something I won’t ever forget. Not for the rest of my life.

The next one, happiness, this one is the most interesting I think because it’s not happened to me in a long time. By long time, I mean before I really got interested in girls, which was like, sixth grade. It has been at the point for a long time that the only way I could find ‘happiness’ was, to “Put a Girl In It,” that’s in quotes because it is a song by Brooks & Dunn. There’s a quote in that song that says “if you’re ridin’ in your truck, put a girl in it,” and in the song it is meant how it’s said, but me being me, I took it for more than I should have. I used that phrase as a symbol filled allusion to my life. The truck became my heart, the empty seat became the space in my heart, and what did I think should fill it? Of course, what it literally said, I put a girl in it. I didn’t look at girl as a friend, or in a religious way. To me that part of the statement was just, girl. The double X chromosome.

Well I soon found out that wasn’t the way to do it. I always had my best friends but I had them pushed up against the wall of my space and filled the rest with good smelling perfume and pretty faces. It got me in loads of trouble ever since middle school and I just realized that that wasn’t the way to do it. Perfume doesn’t fill holes well, it just leaks out until you fill the hole with another one that smells good to you. Then the scent dies away and you need a new one again, and it soon becomes a never ending downward spiral. Let me tell you, relationships are not the key to happiness. Well relationships like that aren’t. The relationships that lead to happiness are your friendships, the ones you should really focus on. I found out, when I became really close to Edwin, that I had found it. It felt weird.

The first thing that crossed my mind was the feeling I hadn’t felt since I was a child. What is this? What do I do with it? How do I keep it? I figured out that your friends and family should take first place, that’s the first step to filling that hole. The second is to stop being lazy, get out and go have fun, don’t stay on the computer or watch television all day, that stuff just adds to the hurt. The third thing is, that in your fun, you remember who is with you, who is there for you, and kick it with the funky cats who you can truthfully call your best friends. They’re the ones that help you get out of trouble, they’re the ones that get in trouble with you, they’re the ones that know what’s best for you, even if you think they’re class five bonkers. Now saying this, Edwin is a normal chill dude, not entirely crazy, I mean, he has his moments when the monkey is definitely clapping the cymbals, but when it comes down to it, he’s boss at bestfriendmanship. He helped turn my frown upside down and see the light that I had turned off for so long. He helped me see that I didn’t need a girl to be happy, not even to be content, which I view as a step lower than happiness. He gave me that final kick in the bum that showed me who my happiness comes from. The ones who wipe my tears, my best friends.

One of the things that helped this exchange a lot is the feeling of togetherness that starts to grow on you as you find your group of friends, the binding force you feel when you get to know your family, the feeling you have when you are on a trip with other exchangers. This is one of the most refreshing feelings you will find on the Rotary Youth Exchange. You will find that there will be good times, and there will be bad, but just think about the amount of other students who are having the same problems, who are away from home, who have that same lost feeling you do. Always, always look to them. They are looking for the same thing from you. On your exchange you will have many friends native to your host country, but many of them you won’t remember, and many of them won’t remember you. The ones who really stick are the exchangers, once you’ve had your first encounter with the other students the desire for more time with them will arise. Let me tell you from experience, the other students will like a lot of the same things you, for me things like soccer and other sports. Another big thing most of us like to do is just have a bit of quiet, a bit of time to ourselves. Using this time will come in handy in tough times, times when you miss home, times when you’re alone and have no one to turn to, times when you are just tired of hearing your new language because you have literally been having to think through every word, every phrase that you speak. The best feeling of togetherness is when you get with the other students, there isn’t a more secure feeling in your exchange year than that little time you will have with them. Those are the things you’ll remember. When you get back home your stories will start with, “Well, I was at blank with the other exchange students and so-and-so did this and my friend Kain said this.” Those are the best times you’ll encounter.

Now that I got most of the things I learned off my chest and out into the world, I figure I should talk a bit more about my last month. Like I said, it was a bit rough with my past host family but with the fifteenth of December, I moved into my third house. I know it seems a bit early for that, but so far I’ve been moving houses in two month increments. My first house, I am going back for another month and I expect to stay in this one three months in full. I had many Christmas parties up to Christmas Day. The first party was of my second host father’s business. I knew no one, but this is the party where I felt like the poster boy. This is the one where I got stuck talking to his boss for nearly an hour. But I ended up having fun, I mean, it could’ve been worse. The second was the Christmas party for my first host father’s business. It was fun and I knew some people, but I didn’t take part in the secret Santa. I then had the Rotary Christmas party in which I got a new shirt and a picture frame. The next day I went to a barbeque with Guto and his mom to another Christmas party and I didn’t take part in that as it was for the old people. By old I’m talkin’ older than me.

The house we were at I’d been to many times and I can still say I love it. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and they have a nice pool. One guy even came and landed a helicopter in the back yard. It was so cool! The next day we went back for lunch to help finish the rest of the feijoada. Feijoada is a Brasilian stew that uses all kinds different meat and beans and all sorts of things. It is great mixed with hot sauce in a cup. I’m gonna learn how to make it so I can bring it back to Florida.

The Tuesday after that was the day I was moving out. There wasn’t much left to do. Guto left for Sao Paulo, Edwin was already there, and I had only a few friends home. So most of my days of the last week were organizing the music in my library. That’s over twelve hundred songs, one at a time. My time was finally full and being put to use. I also had to unpack into my new room and repack to have more space in my suitcase. I need more space because I am currently traveling for two full months. Before I started my travels I was hanging out with my friend Gabriella, her brother, and her brother’s girlfriend. We went to the clubbe to go swimming and play a bit of volleyball. The funny thing about AABB, the clubbe, is that to swim, you have to wear a sunga, which is a speedo. I must say, I do enjoy my bright red sunga. I’m actually going to buy some more, well I have to. Those are the plans for now anyway.

But later that day I went with Gabriella to a friend’s Christmas party where an old lady, who I didn’t know, read some parts from the bible. We then did the lord’s prayer in portugues and they recited a catholic prayer. It was really different. We also had a gift exchange which was cool but I wasn’t originally going to go, so, I didn’t take part. I got home at around 11:30 and watched the Simpsons and Criminal Minds until the next morning when we left for travels at five in the morning. The first place I stayed was Goiania. I was there for twenty-three days staying in my brother’s apartment. We were there for Christmas and to wait for my plane to Sao Paulo. The trip is only five hundred kilometers from Goiania, whereas from Araguaina, the trip is something like thirteen hundred kilometers. It’s a lot shorter, and a lot cheaper from Goiania. I think it’s worth staying in Goiania with my brother extra time for the cheaper faster flight. While there, we had three Christmas parties. The first was just a Christmas dinner where we read the same things as the other party the night before. We also sang hymns in Portugues. It really surprised everyone when they heard me singing.

On the twenty-third, we had a party at my aunt’s house. I didn’t participate in the secret Santa because I wasn’t expected to be there. My aunt had no idea I was coming. So the first one was fun, I got to meet my dad’s side of the family and my Grand got me some cologne. The day after, on the Twenty-fourth, we had another party in which I did participate in the secret Santa. I got my cousin who I hadn’t met but holy goodness is she gorgeous. She is the blonde in the picture with me at the bottom. I got her some earrings and a ring to go with it. My sister, Rayssa, the dark haired girl in the other picture with me, drew my name so she had to get me a gift. She got me a new pair of jeans, which I needed. I also need to hem them because my legs are way too short to fit, story of my life.

Then Christmas Day came and I got to talk to literally everyone. I talked to Ty, everyone on my dad’s side of the family in Indianapolis, my mom, and a few other friends. It was pretty cool seeing everyone and they were definitely surprised at my new four eights of an inch hair cut, considering it’s been since third grade that I’ve had my hair this short. I also found out that I had a bunch of things sent to me, however, I won’t get them until mid February because of my travels. After a few days of nothing, we went to a wonderful place with natural hot water. The name of the city is Caldas Novas. It has many hotels that have pools of this water. It’s so great, I could just live in the water. After three days in Caldas we returned to Goiania. For New Years, we went to a show. The singer was Claudia Leite, her name about describes her music. We’ll just say its a good thing that I brought some headache medicine. I mean, the show was fun, but I was ready for bed about half way through.

These last few days were great, some barbecues, parties with the family, going out with my brother and sister, everything you could imagine to complete a stay in Goiania. These few weeks were great! Now I’m waiting at my aunt’s house, here in Goiania, for my flight to Sao Paulo where my Northeast Super Dream Trip will start. It’s going to be a month of fun and beaches with a bunch of other exchangers. I can’t wait!

March 9 Journal

This journal consists of many things, for starters, it involves a month of fun…

So, the day of December 19 my third host family and I left the house where our next 12 hours would be spent riding in a cramped Hyundai Santa Fe. it wasn’t cramped as to there were so many people, I mean, we did have 5 people in 5 seats, but the fact of the matter was all our stuff. We had Rayssa, my host sister, both of our host parents, and the… what is she called… o ya, maid! Well due to my host mom and Rayssa packing 5 bags apiece and my suitcase the back seat wasn’t too pleasant of a place to sit. I had brought my big suitcase because directly from Christmas, I was to travel, but I will save the details for later.

So by the time we got there, we were all stinking to high heaven, tired, and most of all, hungry. We arrived at my host brother’s apartment in Goiania where he and my host sister live during their school. They don’t study in my city, they go to a big university in the state of Goias, UFG. UFG is the Federal University of Goiania, and it is no easy task to enter. They are both studying law.

Back to my Christmas. So the minutes there I met my host extended family… and, well, some of them are a bit strange. They even remind me of some of my dad’s side of my real family. Christmas was very very… interesting. We ate, a lot, like normal, but there was a tradition I had never seen in my life. Everyone got in a circle, and had a little paper with songs and scripture and even a little picture of Mary. We all sang, then ate, and some people prayed. By the time everyone got out, I was ready to crash. I ended up returning to my host grandma’s and lights out right as I hit the pillow. We had a few Christmas parties… six or something like that. We also did gift exchange which was fun and pretty funny. I got jeans from Rayssa. For regular presents, my host parents got me a pair of shoes, six t-shirts, a pair of pants and I think that’s it. I got a load. After Christmas we spent a few days at this wonderful place with natural hot water… The hotel had huge hot tubs, the size of swimming pools. I will remember the name and always return there.

So I was set to travel on my long trip that started the tenth of January, but my family was leaving to go home on the eighth. It was decided that I would stay at my host aunt’s house. I stayed for a few days and was at a churrasco, then I hit the airport.

So I waited for my plane and I saw my friend and fellow exchanger, Hugo, from France waiting also. I didnt talk to him until we landed in Sao Paulo because I knew that he didn’t recognize me, after all I had shaved my head a just few days prior. I got on the plane, put on my music, and my snores soon could be heard through out the compartments. Yes, I snore and yes, it’s very loud. Well, when we finally landed in Sao Paulo and I arrived at the baggage area, he had his bags and was with the Belo Brasil girl. Belo Brasil is our touring agency. So I got my bags and the two of us hopped in our taxi. We left her there because there were more students arriving later. We got to the hotel to find all the other exchangers in one room. We joined them and talked for hours and eventually went to get some food, but by that time everyone was starving… almost literally!

Well as the night drew to a close we all found ourselves out front of the hotel listening to stories and talking in groups. Those of you who don’t know me, well, I was one of the story tellers and in my new group of friends it was easy to talk to them and just have a good time. I met some of the funniest people that night.

So the next morning, 5 new students arrived and we were to get on our bus, however there were two buses leaving from the same point. Mine was destined for Brasilia and my friends, well of course they were off to Rio. This meeting was short but real sweet. The few of us hopped on my bus and were on the road to Brasilia. It turned out good, my friends Philipp and Jay were on the bus and we had some fun on the way. We made many, many stops to get to Brasilia. We had to pick up students and soon our bus was full except for 3 seats. We did a city tour in Brasilia, and watched the sunset off of the huge TV tower… at least that’s what I think it is.

After Brasilia, we were off to the real part of the Northeast Dream Trip. We were to cities and small towns, some had roads, some didn’t, some were brick, some were sand. The town that had no paved roads, Jericoacoara (jer-ree-kwa-kwa-ra), there was a beautiful beach and it didn’t stop by the water! The roads throughout the village were composed of sand, and there was a big rock called Pedra Furada that was excellent. My friend from Denmark, Alex, and I wanted to see it, but we missed when the group went. So we asked our… leader if we could go and he said it will be difficult to make in the two hours before dinner. He told us it would take a minimum of three hours without taking pictures. Well, of course, Alex and I were off. We went at a jog and a sprint, up and down the mountains of sand and sparse vegetation. We ran past other tourists and were told, at a run, we could make it by nightfall. Well, being the fact that we were half way there, it was too late to turn around. We kept on truckin! We made it with light still, and got a few pictures done. Now being me, I led us back through the hills figuring on physics and gravity to help us. Get up higher on the hills and find the paths going to the beaches first. These paths all went down, that’s where the physics and gravity comes in. We were armed with a camera that had our time, but neither of us were sure it was right. To see what time it was or how much we had left, we shot a blank foto and looked at the time it said. We were on our run back and, no lie, I kicked 11 rocks and one huge piece of wood. We made it back with forty-five minutes before dinner, so we hopped in the pool and still had time to shower.

At dinner, my big toe was really big. In our days there, we also took a dunebuggy ride and got to do sand boarding… It was an excellent experience. We went to other beautiful cities like Natal, which means Christmas, and Itacare. Both beautiful beach cities. Another City we visited which was my favorite was Fortaleza. We stayed in an absolutely breathtaking hotel right on the beach. The water was the color of the sky and the sand was white as snow. Fortaleza just was the perfect description a beautiful beach. We went to a bunch more cities, all with shopping malls and beaches. We even had one day where we were at a beach and they had a load of people dancing to Axé music. That’s the music they play at Carnaval. My favorite bands are Chiclete com Banana, Ivete Sangalo, and Banda Eva. At the end of the day, a few of us guys went to dance with them… that’s when it started. First my good friend, Jakob, from Denmark, got called up to dance samba. He got up and faked a ridiculously bad samba, that was hilarious. The next to be called up was of course someone who could dance single ladies… Well, all my friends had heard about my single ladies experience at my school before I left. So I got called up, and danced to single ladies with another guy… Of course it was videoed, and it will be in my memory forever. In front of three hundred people, dancing single ladies… excellent. Then two more guys, one from Germany and the other from Mexico got called up and they had dance like girls… there is a story inside of that, but I will save it for a living room chat.

We finished in Rio with samba and funk lessons where we learned the dance to Créu. Sexy sexy… We saw the Sugarloaf and the Christ and wrapped it up. Some of us were off to our cities on the way back to Sao Paulo, others, like me were back to the hotel to wait for our flight. The long bus ride went really really fast. The end of the trip came with tears from some and laughter from others, but one thing’s for sure… Everyone gained lifetime friends from that trip. For you future Brasil exchangers, the two trips you have to go on. The Northeast Dream Trip and I hear Amazon is a must. Those are the two.

So back to my travels, yes, I got home 2 months after I left for Christmas. That’s a long time away from home away from home… get it? So Carnaval, we were at the parties for 4 days but did other things too, we stayed in Salvador for a week, we, being my family. So after my northeast trip, I took my flight straight to Salvador, where I would land and stay at a family friend’s house for a night and a day and wait for my host family to arrive. So the tenth they met us at the shopping mall. Fantastic, we had lunch in the food court. I ate Burger King, the thing is, Burger King is excellent in every country, there is not a better international fast food restaurant. This is a strong recommendation for exchangers, always go with Burger King, it’s the better choice.

So after the food court we were getting our “abadás” ready. I say the actually word because I’m not sure what it is in English, you future exchangers, this will also happen to you, but an abadá is what we had to wear to get into our block. Carnaval in Salvador has many blocks, each of which is composed of one band or dj and two huge trucks. These trucks are rigged so the VIPs can go to the top and the band also can, they also have a men’s and women’s bathroom in the second one. They both blare music at deafening volume, I still have trouble hearing and it was a month ago from the 13th. They play music at the volume where everyone can jump up and down and dance and sing and go crazy and still hear it. After the first day I kept yelling because it was like I constantly had water in my ear. To decide where the blocks ended and began, there was an incredibly long and heavy rope held by the “Cordeiras,” the people paid to carry the rope. It was incredible!

The Carnaval sometimes started very early. One day, the first block left at 3 pm and the last one usually leaves at 12 or 1 am. There are also people who don’t go inside the ropes. There is “camarote” and also the “pipoca.” “Camarote” is where the people have a type of box. It’s raised off the ground and at some of the bigger boxes, a band might stop and do a minishow for the people in the camarote. The “pipoca” is for the people who didn’t want to pay. They are on the outsides of the street and in street clothes.

The crazy part about Carnaval is the police. There is one group that wears all black, they are riot groups and they do not have rules. If you touch the police in anyway, you usually take a shot in the gut with the nightstick, but I was warned the “black” police were the bad ones. Often times we would walk through an area and there would be tear gas in the air. It was in small amounts, but it’s impossible to not notice it. The security was very tight, but there were still many many fights. One time, we even saw a man who had gotten his head smashed against the sidewalk. It was so crazy.

The one block where the pipoca is the most dangerous was at Chiclete com Banana. Chiclete is a band that everyone in Brasil knows and out of everyone I have met in Brasil, I only know one person who doesn’t like. So it’s always full and always crazy. One day we were on the pipoca walking back to the car because our block finished and we walked by Chiclete. It took twenty minutes to pass two hundred feet of people. Two hundred feet of shoulder to shoulder, back to front, and sometimes people broke out into a fight and it would get dangerous because the bad cops would storm the area. Everyone knows they’re bad so everyone moves and that space of shoulder to shoulder back to front minimizes tenfold. There were times when I would have fallen but it was so tight I was literally held up off the ground.

One specific time I remember was one fight that was really close to our group so we backed off and my feet were literally off the ground but it looked like I was standing. My arms were one on my chest and the other at my side and I was “standing” in the supercrowd waiting for the cops to finish their work. I know I’m talking about the bad stuff but don’t get the wrong idea, it’s not all that crazy, it’s actually really really fun.

In my block, I was there three days. The first day we had Tomate, a singer who isn’t that bad but he isn’t one of the big guys at the show. The second was Banda Eva, one of my favorite Axé bands and the third was my favorite, Ivete Sangalo. The day of Banda Eva was the craziest in our block. There were many many people and everyone jumping up and down. To jump you had to stay with the people near you otherwise you would get some, what I like to call, “Carnaval burn.” That’s when you’re jumping up and down and you are rubbing against the people and friction literally gives you a burn similar to a rug burn.

The days were crazy and like I said, when I got home, my ears were ringing and talking was at high volume. Now I know how my Grand feels:) Love you Grandma!

The day after we did our three days of blocks we went to camarote. We had an excellent camarote. They had free drinks, two floors, and a club! It was amazing! When Claudia Leite, a crescending singer, was to come by, she stopped at our camarote and did a minishow for us! The TV cameras were from above us because the stage was on the second floor, the next day we were watching national TV and guess who we saw! It was so cool!

Back to the 11th, we had a show to go to. We went to see one of the most known American artists, Beyoncé. Her show was brilliant. Ivete Sangalo opened for her, and was also brilliant. I used to not like Beyoncé’s music, but I guess that was just what I needed. I have most of her show music on my iTouch now! It was fantastic, that is something I will always remember. This week was incredible, as was the two month travels. I love Brasil.

June 23 Journal

A few weeks have passed since my best trip on exchange. The trip to the Amazon was the most memorable yet. No, we didn’t see many animals, catch many piranha, stay in a bunch of great hotels, relax on beautiful beaches, or have any good parties, but, what our group had was memories. We danced on top of the boat, the guys team beat the Indians in soccer for the first time in the trip history, we got to jump off the top of our tour boat, we stayed in a hotel that rivaled a castle in size, we took boat rides into the forest to see Indian tribes, we visited a school, we had a canoe trip in hollowed tree canoes that sunk with the slightest movement, we made jewelry, and we just had fun! There is nothing I could say or even show you that would describe this trip. If you have heard the saying, “pictures say a thousand words,” it doesn’t matter how many pictures I show you, it won’t show you the power of this trip. The only way to show justice for you and the trip would be to experience it in the flesh. It is my highest recommendation for everyone to see the Amazon.

Because a few weeks has passed, it means my time is coming to an end. I am in my last month and my date is coming up. I’m leaving home to go back home. Saying that statement feels just as weird as it sounds. A part of me says I’m ready and another part thinks I’m crazy for leaving. Honestly, I don’t know which part is right. I was sent here to Brasil with 2 goals, to learn the language, and to learn the culture. Within six months, these goals were completed. With my last few months, I just honed my Portuguese and became even more Brasilian. I have done my job, and it is up to the next exchanger to finish his work and so on. So as my time finishes, I know that it’s my time to step aside and open the door for the next student to step into my shoes. I wish every one of you new outbounds… and inbounds, the best of luck in your exchanges. This is my last journal… Thank you everyone for your support and belief in me.

Kati’s Bio

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Moving around as a child, I have had my own map created. Each move creates a new opportunity, with a new opportunity comes a new experience. I have learned who I am, what I like. Each door I open, I am ready to walk through. I cannot wait to go into the black abyss of the unknown. Find my door, open wide, and let the sun shine on what I know will be my next voyage.

Hola!

I am Kati. Currently, I am a Junior at Vero Beach High School in Vero Beach, Florida. My only other sibling is my brother Mark. We are only 17 months apart in age. He is my best friend and at the same time my worst enemy. My parents are my guiding light. Since I was a child, they always gave me what I needed not wanted. If advice was on the menu, they served it. Coming from divorced parents, I learned how to solve problems without bitterness as they always do. Without my pillars, I would fall (okay maybe wobble).

I was born in Palmdale, California 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Basically, it was a desert community with Joshua trees galore. Since then, ironically, I am now living in seaside Vero Beach, Florida with my dad.

Volleyball is my passion. I could play that game for hours and always have enough spunk for another set. I am not the best but that should never stop you from doing what you truly love. Playing cribbage with my dad, running in the park, talking, and reading romance stories are enjoyable to me. I am down-to-earth. What you see is what you get, as they say. I do not like to make something more complicated than it should be. I live day by day making it the best it can be without any regrets.

That is me: simple, individualistic, grab-a-bull-by-the-horns, bright-color-nail-polish-wearing, walk-in-the-rain, name without an ‘e’, Kati.

Kati’s Journals

September 9 Journal

I cannot believe that I have finally made it to SPAIN! After almost a year of preparation and anxiety for the trip, I finally arrived little more than a week ago. I remember getting off the plane and the first thought I had was ‘what is that smell?’ After looking around for the source, I finally saw a booth that was labeled for fumar or smoking. Now, I started to look for my family, and quickly remembered that I was in the terminal and they would be somewhere else like maybe on the other side of the airport after baggage? I followed the flow of people and made it to baggage. Once there I grabbed a cart and waited for 20 minutes for the tram thingy to turn on. Now, I was on my way to meet my family. The nerves hit me so hard I was not sure if I could actually make it there. I mean I had been flying for 12 hours, had not showered, and was abnormally tired. But I pushed through. Walking out of baggage claim, I see my family waving at me like crazy. I did not know what they looked like but I was sure it was them. My host dad Eduardo, his daughter Maria, and her best friend Maria all greeted me at the airport.

After all the besos and abrazos, we headed toward their car. Now before I left, my dad and I were talking about what car they may have. Maybe a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW or better yet a Porsche…..but no they had this really cute blue car made by Citroën. Once we loaded the car with my bags, we were going to my new home. On the way to the house and in the airport, they all spoke Spanish to me. I was really unprepared for this. I was exhausted and not too good at Spanish. Thank goodness my family does speak English so I could at least get some bearings. Twenty minutes later we arrived at their apartamento. I did not know what to expect. I was actually really surprised when I saw the place. It was not large, but it was not small. it had a Goldilocks and 3 bears thing going on. I felt immediately at home.

After the tour of the house, we had some lunch. It was chicken and rice with of course bread. All the reading in the world could not prepare anybody for the sensation you have in your mouth when you eat real authentic Spanish food. Soon after lunch I was offered to take a shower and then participate in a Spanish tradition, la siesta. La siesta is a mid afternoon nap right after lunch or maybe before. I awoke 2 hours later and was back on my feet. My host sister Maria took me on a tour of the neighborhood and candy store. I bought some caramels and she bought Twizzlers. We then head to the berlin park. It was amazing to see how many people were there. Coming from a town of 17,000 to a city of millions was a huge change. There is a lot of green here, more than you would expect in a city.

Since my first day here it has been go-go-go! I have walked the streets of Madrid only to become really lost, but no good exchange would go anywhere without an area map, right? Well, of course, I had my map and used to navigate my way back home two hours later. I have ridden on the public transportation. I really enjoy the buses and subway. Before now I was not exposed to the city life or European. I have visited my school numerous times and still have no idea what I am doing. We have gone out to dinner once. It was an American restaurant, Tony Roma’s. I think maybe they thought it would comfort me, but I was already content and wanted to start my Spanish life. I have a pass to the pool which I visit religiously. Their pool complex is like the YMCA in America.

I love living here. My window opens right onto the street. I can hear all the sounds from cars, people, and animals. Surprisingly there are no bugs or flies and best of all no mosquitoes! My window has no screen so I am able to stick my head out and feel the city air brush my face. Every morning, I wake up and cannot wait to start walking the streets of Madrid.

Buena suerte!

Kati

November 1 Journal

I have been here for exactly 2 months starting today. I understand mostly what people are saying to me, and I can respond to their questions. I find that every now and then I forget some English words and can only talk about them in Spanish. I find that now I am always the one telling the stories, asking the questions, and chatting on the phone with my friends.

I love the school here. I have a total of 8 classes of which I have six each day. There is a selection of majors you can choose from including: Arts, Humanities, International, and Science. I am enrolled in Humanities. My classes include Art History, Spanish History, Philosophy, Literature, Language, English, Geography, and Psychology. I find it amazing that I don’t have a math class because in the States you have to have a certain class every year like math and English, but here you choose a major and take only those courses. Here, you don’t change classes, the teachers do. I am not sure if I like it yet or not. The little walks in between were a nice chance to stretch your legs and have a break, but now I just sit at a desk and wait for the next class to begin. Another interesting difference is that they don’t have substitute teachers. So when a teacher is not there, you either wait for the next class or if it is the last class of the day you go home. The school gives the students here a lot more freedom than in the States. They have a smoking section here…yeah it’s different.

Recent Events:

My family owns a house up in Asturias which is in the northern part of Spain. It is located in this pueblo called Puerto de Vega. Our house overlooks the water. Asturias is so pretty with the mountains and the seaside. While we were there we visited numerous beaches and towns.

About two weekends ago, I went on a Rotary Excursion. All the kids from Madrid and the surrounding pueblos all met at Cercedilla, a little train station, to begin our hike. From Cerdedilla, we took another train to the base of the mountain. While on the train I met up with Tatiana, Laura, and Ray. Once to the base, we began our climb up the mountain. It was so beautiful. The rocks had this green hue and every once in a while these big clouds would swallow us up. It was really windy and a little cold. We had lunch at the peak of the mountain where there was a little bit of snow. We hiked 10 miles of which took us 6 hours.

Yesterday was Halloween, and to my surprise they celebrate it here. It is not as big as in the states, but the kids still celebrate it … well … really it is only the teenagers and maybe some kids. There is no trick-or-treating so the fun is limited. I was invited to a party at a friend’s house from school. It was really fun. We played games and danced and just hung out. It felt like I was back in the States hanging with friends.

My life tends to be quite normal. I got to school every day and have homework. I hang out with friends or family on the weekends. Even though it all sounds the same as in America, it is truly all the more different.

I love it in here. Spain is my new home. I love my family, friends, and my new life. I am enjoying every day and hoping that time will slow down.

January 24 Journal

Every day, I wake up and see the same thing. I have breakfast with my family and then prepare myself for school. This is my new normal. The things I do now are not different. They’re me.

Although, I am not super fluent in my language, I find that I am having more and more conversations in Spanish. I use the words like como, vale, y, pero normally without even thinking about it. I surprise myself when I make whole sentences and don’t even have to think about it. When I read, I don’t have to translate into English. I can read straight through and understand it. I am beginning to only know words in Spanish and have the trouble translating it into English.

But over the last four months, I have begun to treasure who I am and where I come from. For one of the first times in my life, I am proud to be an American. I enjoy saying my president is Obama. I love coming from a country of every culture in the world. The feelings that are growing for my country are strong and indescribable. Yes, I really enjoy Spain and it culture, but mine is just so much more unique and I have never seen it from that view before.

Now, that I have done my philosophical view on the world, I’ll go on to what I’ve been doing. Well Christmas or Navidades was good. I enjoyed the meals most of all because we had some very interesting new things. It was the first time I had foie (duck liver) and prawns. The foie is so rich and smooth and the prawns were these cute little guys that you got to play autopsy on and remover their heads. Well, then again that does not sound like autopsy as much as does murder, but murder just doesn’t seem Christmas-y. Then we had New Year’s and more prawns. The last holiday we celebrated which was new to me was Los Reyes. This is on the 6th of January to celebrate the 3 kings that came to bear gifts to Jesus. Each gift comes from one of the Reyes and has a little saying or dicho with it. This year mine came from Gaspar. Another thing which I really enjoyed was the 3 weeks off of school. Spain knows how to do Los Navidades.

During break, I had gone to Santander which is a city in the north of Spain in the community of Cantabria. It is the Capital city and is right on the water with a harbor. The beaches are so beautiful because they are so wide and flat and have the background of the European Peaks which at this time were covered in snow. It was so magical and enchanting. Whenever I see the mountain here I just want to sit on a hill with an easel and paint brush and go crazy on canvas.

School started on the 11th and it was back to work. I have been keeping busy with school work and heading to the gym. Here normally you don’t go out on weekdays to hang with friends, which I’ll admit was very tough at first because I was use to doing that to keep busy. This past weekend I went to a concert of the band Billy Talent. Then afterwards I had a party at a friend’s house where we stayed up all night dancing and doing karaoke. I had to sing all the Spanish and songs while my friends did the English. Let’s just say when one sings in Spanish they are going at like 100 mph.

Now another week is starting. I only have 3 days because we have a four day weekend starting Thursday. Other than that, life is normal and well I am beginning to grow in way I never knew a person could. I thought I had a strong grip on the world and life, but I am discovering that it was only a finger skimming the surface of something much bigger than I thought.

Besos,

Kati

May 20 Journal

Today. Home. Again sick.

It was about two weeks ago that I was extremely sick with this nasty throat infection called Amigdalitis now what is that, tonsillitis. Yes, I have the horrible tonsillitis. Dry throat, throbbing pain, and on top of that I have to speak Spanish. When you are an exchange student, your work is never done.

Now let’s catch up on a couple of things:

Last weekend: León

My host sister studies veterinary up there and it so happened to be her birthday so what better time to travel! It was so beautiful and surprising modern. I was expecting a city drenched in history but what I came to find was that all was redone and made of modern construction. Yes, the old cathedral was still there and the old wall that used to surround the city, but that was only in the center. Once you stepped 20 feet away it was like “modernolandia”. All the buildings were recently constructed and all the streets repaved with asphalt not the normal uncomfortable blister giving stone. But still, the city was without doubt one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

2 weeks ago: Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy

This little island in the middle of the Mediterranean is something special. I went there to visit a friend and saw one of the coolest places ever. First of all it is kind of like the Lost island where it is all flat and then you have these huge sky polluting mountains. Then, they have this awesome fascination with cork. You could basically buy anything made out of cork. I happened to be there during a festival for Jesus so there was a huge parade in the street with the different regions of Sardinia represented through their dress, crop, and food specialty. This was also my first time on/in the Mediterranean. We went to this beautiful beach where you could walk out about mile without a drop off and with beautiful clear blue water. Later on during my 9 day trip, we went to see some caves in the mountains, eat at a restaurant that makes things with nutella, and see an ancient Roman city that had been destroyed by the tide.

5 weeks ago: Started at a new school

I changed families back in April. Now, the new family didn’t live in Madrid so that meant that I was going to have to leave the city to go out to a smaller town called Colmenar Viejo (old Apiary). It is about a 40 minute train ride from Madrid and I wasn’t really feeling taking that every morning to go to school at 8:30 so they decided to put me in a new school. Which in the end I am so very glad they did. I have un montón de amigos and they are always so interested in learning about where I come from. This transition was a lot easier since I knew a lot more Spanish than when I started at my first school so I was able to participate more in class and actually have real conversations with the people.

7 weeks ago: Semana Santa (Saints’ week or Holy week)

This is basically spring break here where for about 2 weeks you celebrate and party. Here in Spain they have the carrying of the floats (pasos) by the people (costaleros) through the streets for the procession and then there are the people who where the pointed hats (capriotes). There are a million of these in about every city and each one is different as in different traditions. Well, I didn’t go and see any of these instead I went with my new host family to their small village. They call it the pantano which means swamp. It is this cute little village that is right next to a huge dam. There was only one bar and everyone knew each other. It is one of those places you can get to visit once in a lifetime. But before I arrived there I had to take the train for 6 hours to go to the city of Cáceres. This is a place filled to the brim with history. It was one of the towns most beaten up during all the wars of Spain, it was where the soldiers from Napoleon’s army walked through on the way to conquer Portugal, and where I had one of the best pastries EVER! Then after the 5 days in el pantano we went to Trujillo. This is a lovely little town still living back in the 18th century. It has a beautiful castle and small streets filled with venders and old bath houses. Here there is the annual festival called Chivri where all you do is listen to music (singing optional) and drink and eat typical food. There they have a special sandwich which is like the first hotdog. It is bread that someone stuck a thing of chorizo in. Also, the woman dress up as Shepherds’ wives.

Life here in Spain is different every day. I learn something new or different. I meet people from all over the world everyday and I enjoy all that I can. I know that when it’ll be time to go I’ll be ready, but this place leaves a mark on you that’ll never go away. I will always have that little bit of Spanish in me.

Kendall’s Bio

Hola! My name is Kendall Bahr and I am more than thrilled to be a part of the Rotary Youth Exchange.

I’ve lived in sunny Florida my entire life and although I love it here, I cannot wait to get out! I come from a large family of six; I have one older sister, one older brother, and one little brother. I also have three hilarious dogs. My parents are very supportive of my ambitions including this one.

I am a senior at my high school and very involved. I’m the captain of the Varsity cheerleading squad and a lso on the track team, these sports take up most of my time, I also have a part time job at a local Italian restaurant. When I have spare time I enjoy hanging out with my friends, working out, shopping, and reading. I also love my two ceramic classes I have at school. I’m very outgoing and I live to have fun, I know this experience will be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am ready to soak in as much of the Spanish culture as I possibly can!

 Kendall’s Journals

October 8 Journal

Ah Spain. Here I sit, in my beautiful house in the sea side village of Cambrils. I’ve never seen such beauty. Mountains surrounding me, the Mediterranean at my feet. Life has never been so good.

I’ve been here for about a month and so much has already happened. I’ve already experienced so many first time things. So where do I begin? Hmmmm, probably at 5:00 a.m. in Orlando International Airport…

This was it, the moment I had been waiting for since I even knew foreign exchange existed. The moment I had been anticipating for about a year now. I hugged my little brother, mom, and daddy good bye, shed a few tears, and walked into security. I had never been so scared in my life. This was my first time flying, so I had no idea what I was doing. I went through security, got to my gate, waited, boarded and took off. After being on the plane for all of 15 minutes, it hit me and it hit me hard. All I could think was “my god, what have I done?” “Umm stewardess, is there a turn this plane around button?!” There goes my 18 years of life, my amazing family, my great friends, my cute little puppies all bundled together in the only town I’ve ever known. So, as you can imagine, I turned on the waterworks.

I let a few tears slide by, after a whole minute of doubt, I stopped. This was the opportunity I had been waiting my whole life for, to say good-bye, to discover things by myself. I took a vow to myself that first flight, that I would not lose myself to pity, I would stay strong, and overcome these hard yet rewarding obstacles in my very very near future. I guess I was in some sort of denial about really leaving, it felt like the day would never come, but it came, and it took me by surprise. The rest of my flights went well, no delays or problems, besides not sleeping for 36 hours, I was much too anxious the night before, as you can imagine.

My first day in Spain was very much a haze. I was exhausted, but smiling through it all. I was really blown-away by the scenery and still am. Every day, I want to take a picture of the mountains, they’re so gorgeous! I’ve become very accustomed to life here though. I feel as if this is my home, and actually got a little home sick for my home in Spain while I was in Madrid for my orientation, which was really odd to me.

I started school the second week I was here; I was a little nervous to say the least. Because I’ve already graduated, the school decided that I didn’t have to worry too much about doing the assignments because they are hard even for Spanish speakers, so I mostly sit, listen, write down everything they say and translate lots. The girls at my school are so sweet and the guys here are not so nice … I will not go into that. Back to the girls, the ones in my class are very nice and include me in everything they do, which I am very grateful for. One girl, everyday asks… “can you speak Spanish yet” The other girls can get by with their English, they say things in English to me and have me repeat them in Spanish, it’s actually very helpful. If I use the sayings throughout the day they get so happy and clap. The other students who I have not really talked to always walk by and say “halo” – they can’t get the E sound right, I always hear them giggle afterwards, it’s cute.

Every day at school is like a comedy act. The questions I get and the comments are so hilarious. My math teacher in particular always is interested in me, especially the first few days. On my very first day in her class, the students explained to her that I spoke no Spanish or Catalan. She was immediately flustered, they continued to tell her that I didn’t have to do the work and so on. She seemed a little relieved. The class went on, I sat and listened, not understanding a word, just sitting like all the other students. She stopped speaking, looked at me and announced to the class something in Spanish; she kept pointing at me and speaking. The girl next to me who speaks very good English explained to me that the teacher told the class that “this is a beautiful American girl, everyone needs to talk to her and be her friend so she will learn quickly.” I immediately turned a rosy shade. I was so embarrassed. The next day, she came up to me and started speaking to me in Spanish, I just smiled, she then told the girl next to me to translate. The teacher wanted to know if my high school back in Florida was like High School Musical, with the basketball players and cheerleaders, etc. My response: “si” haha

The funniest part is my friends are constantly hounding me with questions on America’s gun policy, or insurance or Obama, and my teacher is asking about High School Musical … complete opposite of what I expected, but that’s one thing I’ve learned, throw your expectations out the window and just go with the flow. Besides school, I enjoy riding my bike, or should I say falling off my bike :p walking to the beach, swimming, shopping! Spanish TV is quite humorous, and sometimes I think I should cover my eyes, lots of nudity and blood, but to the people here, that’s normal, so it’s becoming normal to me.

Every day here is different than the one before, every question is given a simple response, si or no, every rude comment and sweet remark is a gracias. I never know what’s next and I absolutely love that feeling now. Like I said before, I have no expectations, I go, I experience, I live, I learn. To me, everything given or asked of me is an opportunity to see something I didn’t see yesterday. To experience the mountains in a different light, the ocean at a different temperature. This exchange has already tested my endurance, my taste buds, my ability to make friends solely by being American and smiling a lot, by attempting the language and failing most of the time but receiving ample amounts of praise, pats on the back, never ending smiles when I am in fact correct, that’s about 2 out of every 10 tries. But as an exchange student, you can’t be afraid to be incorrect, you just have to laugh at yourself, correct it, remember it and move on to the next attempt.

I sometimes look at my life here and think that I’m the luckiest girl alive. I really do feel that way. I have an amazing family, a beautiful town and house, good friends at school, and a never doubtful support system back in the states. I’ve already been to Madrid and Barcelona and tons of smaller beautiful cities in between. At the end of October, my family is taking me to southern Spain for a mini vacation and in December we’ll be going to the mountains to visit my grandparents for Christmas, skiing and what not. I can honestly say I haven’t been this happy in a long time. I feel invincible and I’ve never been so open to new concepts and ideas. I am already changing before my eyes, there is nothing I can do to stop it and really I don’t want it to stop, I’m liking what I see. So, I leave you with that, my life after a month is amazing. I am at home here in Spain.

Thank you everyone from RYE, John Siegel, and all the outbounds of course – your encouragement is the best kind; and also my family there and here – your support is incredible.

Until next time, Adios

February 8 Journal

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and these months are quickly forming into the greatest year of my life. I know it’s been a while since my last journal, but many things have been going on and to be honest I’ve been at a loss for words. It’s difficult to write about your everyday life, as simple a task it may sound. Everyday has become somewhat similar than the one before, little things pop up here and there, but for the most part, it’s school, Spanish lessons, delicious meals, and just hanging out with my host mom and sister. The weekends are a whole different story though; I try and go into a nearby city at least every weekend. I’m only a short train ride away from Barcelona (the most beautiful city in the World), so even though I live in the suburbs, I make it a point to go to the city as much as possible. I’ve also been enjoying the night life Spain has to offer, I understand why taking a siesta is so popular here. It’s normal to not leave the house until 12:00 a.m! That was my curfew back in Florida, haha

The past 4 months I’ve been given a lot of opportunities to see many of the different regions of Spain. In October, my family and I flew down south to Andalusia and stayed in Sevilla. We visited Cordoba and Granada as well. I was completely blown away with how beautiful southern Spain is. It was warm, sunny, and friendly. I was without a doubt in love and completely jealous of the exchange students who lived there. Over Christmas break we stayed with my Grandparents in a little pueblo called Bailo. Bailo is in the Aragon region of Spain. The town has about 200 inhabitants on a good day. Although I was far from civilization, I really liked it, we were up in the Mountains, and it was just gorgeous. The Pyrenees Mountains are really something else. I’ve also recently been to Valencia and hope to go back and see more of what that city has to offer. What I find so interesting about Spain is just how separated a country it truly is. Because it’s split up into the different regions, it really feels like you’re going into an entirely different country when you cross regional borders. The food, architecture, traditions, and commonly the language are completely different than any neighboring regions. It’s good and bad, it definitely makes you have a sense of pride towards where you come from. But in turn, I feel as though the pride for Spain as a whole isn’t really there. I might be a little brainwashed on this issue, considering my region, Catalonia desires complete independence from Spain (although I don’t exactly agree with this). Each day my love/hate relationship for my region grows and I enjoy asking my classmates how they feel about Catalan independence. Spaniards tend to have quite strong opinions, Catalans tend to have even stronger ones.

Like I said in my previous journal, this place is my home, I feel just as comfortable here as I would in Florida. One part of me calls Eustis, Florida- The City of Bright Tomorrows, what I’ve always known, trusted, and experienced my home. The other part of me has already put its roots deep down in Cambrils, Spain. Is it possible to have your heart completely torn down the middle? In my situation and for all the other exchange students, I hope so.

I’ve never had such mixed emotions in my entire life than I have had since I’ve arrived. One minute I’m filled with complete and utter happiness, the next minute lonely, and confused. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but it’s definitely not a glamorous vacation, it’s life, it’s REAL life. I think this is something that many people forget when they think of an exchange student. It’s not a prolonged vacation; it’s school, work, hardships, fun times, it’s definitely worth EVERY single low point that you come across. Some days, when I’m really frustrated with the language or missing my family, the days when crawling out of bed seems impossible, I try and remember the bigger picture that I am taking part in. The lifetime connections I am creating, the unforgettable memories, the crossing of cultures and the breaking of stereotypes.

So I leave you with that, once again thanks to Mr. Siegel, everyone from RYE Florida, my family, chocolate, and the public libraries of Salou and Cambrils.

April 26 Journal

It is April. I’m stepping on a plane in June.

Just when I feel like my life here is coming together, I see it slowly but surely unraveling before my eyes. I’m still living life, happier than I have ever been, but in all that I do, there is a little voice in my head telling me to take it all in, it could be the last time you do this.

Just two weeks ago at this time, I was eating a Spanish style lunch with my family (my real family), showing my mom, dad, and little brother everything about Barcelona. Owning the metro like I had lived there for years, telling them little stories behind why people do this or that, speaking in Spanish at restaurants and parking garages for them, showing my father how to pump gas (this I found hilarious). Showing my town off to my parents felt like the greatest accomplishment. It felt so good to actually know where I was going and what was going on, it was the strangest feeling being in charge of my parents. Forgetting English words and asking them if that’s how you say that in English also felt like an accomplishment. The week they were here had to have been one of the greatest parts of my exchange. I feel so lucky that they were able to come and I think I have even inspired my little brother to one day be an exchange student. Having both of my families in my backyard here, sipping sangria and sharing stories was an unforgettable moment in my life. When it was finally time for my parents to leave, I thought it would be really hard and a crying fest like back in September, instead it felt really natural. It made me realize how at home I have become here, my family might have left, but my life still goes on here for me, school occasionally 😉 Spanish lessons, bike rides, beach, etc.

So, what’s next for me? I have less than two months left. Less than two months to travel, shop, eat as much as I can, two months to mentally prepare myself for college, and two months to be with my family, my Spanish family.

Lily’s Bio

My name is Lily, and I am a sophomore at Indian River Charter High School. I am so incredibly excited to go on this adventure. The reality of the whole thing has yet to sink in. This is the kind of experience I always dreamed of doing but never expected to actually accomplish.

I am a plethora of paradoxes. I contradict myself in almost every way. I am torn between becoming a concert pianist/massage therapist and a powerful politician. I love tranquility, but my room is organized to be disorganized. With bright red walls, terribly crooked mirrors and paintings, and a bed that sticks out from the corner at a 45 degree angle. To top it off, in the other corner is a small altar on which I have my Buddha fountain, always emitting the peaceful sound of water.

I am a metal head, and a hippie at the same time, torn between Tool and Pink Floyd as my favorite musicians. I am a pacifist, but at the same time, am somehow fascinated by war. I meditate daily, but I also find a strange release in the chaos and pandemonium of concerts. I have to try very hard to fight my impulses, and my spontaneity. I have trouble thinking logically most of the time, and often see things for what they could be, instead of what they are. I have a tendency to be obdurate, and stubborn, but I am working on it. I also have a tendency to be brutally honest, and terribly blunt. Basically, I am a typical Sagittarius, right down to the ridiculous clumsiness, which is, now that I have accepted it, quite amusing at times.

I have been called a “character” and don’t fit into any class of people. My teachers either love or hate my way of thinking, which often involves analyzing what they say, and finding ironies and paradoxes hidden deep inside the statement.

On top of all of this, I am a musician at heart. My whole world revolves around energy and the vibrations of life. I could play the piano every hour of every day if I was given the chance. I write a song about everyone that I know, but I cannot write one for myself. I believe in God, and also study the teachings of Buddha. I really don’t know who I am, underneath it all. All I do know is that, I am exactly who I am supposed to be at this moment, and change will come when it chooses. As it always has, and always will.

Lily’s Journals

August 23 Journal

Merhaba!

I have officially been in Turkey for a week. The plane ride was a nightmare, because I was sick to my stomach the whole 20 some hours of flight and layover. But I made several friends on the flights and they all encouraged me. One word of advice to those of you who have not left yet, do not trust your emotions. You will be on a rollercoaster, teetering on the edge of unparalleled joy and excitement, and unsurmounted negativity, regret and sorrow. Having only a single thought be all it takes to trigger tears or smiles. Nothing is stable and nothing lasts, so just trust that this is not how you will feel the whole time.

So, anyway.

My host family is wonderful beyond belief. Everything here is just as perfect as I could have imagined. I have been here a week and still I have not found a single cloud in the sky. The water is sooooo blue, and crystal clear. Their beaches make the beaches in Vero look like mud. The weather is beautiful with no humidity, and that was a very pleasant surprise.

I don’t like the city as much as I do the country side, and I get to live out the rest of the summer in this cute little country home by the shore.

I have made many new friends already. Turkish culture is very different, for example:

1. You take off your shoes outside the front door, only to put on a pair of inside shoes. All in all you have 3 pairs of shoes. One for outside, one for the first floor, and one for the second floor because you aren’t supposed to wear the shoes while walking up stairs. No one knows why. I think I was the first person to ever question it.
2. When greeting someone, you can either say hello, and shake their hand, or you can give them a kiss on both cheeks and look at them like they are your long lost lover. But knowing which to do and with whom is like a sixth sense that I don’t have. I am always getting confused, because there seems to be no rules about it. It causes much laughter amongst my friends.
3. When you go to the market (the bazaar), you ask how much something is, and he gives you the price, then you act offended, like “how dare you price it so high?” and then you cut the price in half and offer that much. Then he looks at you the same way, and you keep arguing until you agree, which is usually somewhere in the middle.
4. Once you are done drinking coffee, which you do every morning, and afternoon, you turn your glass upside down and have someone look at the dregs inside and read your fortune for the day.
5. Turkish people will just stare at you if they find you weird or interesting. And you can meet their eye, and they won’t look away, they will just keep staring wordlessly until they are done and it is perfectly normal.

That is all I can think of for now. I wish everyone who is reading this good luck on your adventures. And whenever you are struggling, just remember that this is much bigger than us, and no one said the whole thing would be easy. Remember why we are doing this and what it stands for.

Best of luck

-lily

September 14 Journal

Today is my one month anniversary with Turkey. Things are definitely getting better than they were before. But I suppose such a drastic change just is not complete without its ups and downs. Emotionally, I was subconsciously unstable, if that makes any sense. I seemed to teeter on the extremities of every side of the emotional spectrum. And having nothing to do with my time except think made me do just that.

I was thinking about whether this year is going to sever my dependence on my parents or only make me realize how much I truly need them. I was thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. Lying in my bed, insomnia taking its iron grip on my mind, I began to ponder fate and God, and existence. I hadn’t thought so hard in a very long time, just alone with the silence. When you take a swim down memory creek, the water is nice and warm and placid. Seeing old friends again and reminiscing pleasantly in random childhood memories. However sometimes you swim through an icy undercurrent that chills you to the bone, and you freeze up. When you truly allow your mind to be free, and stop filtering your thoughts, it will carry you to the places you need to go.

And so, last night, in Turkey of all places, I finally faced something I had been running from for two long years. And I think it may be over now. Who knows.

For now, things seem to have taken on a comfortably steady pace. Bouts of loneliness are growing thin and far apart. As I become more attuned to Turkish culture and people, I feel my sense of displacement is wearing thin. My doe eyes replaced with passive curiosity, if not a simple acceptance.

I cannot help but wonder, as I write this journal, which sentence Al is going to choose as a headline. It is kind of exciting.

Something wonderful happened the other day. I woke up one morning to the first day of Autumn. Living in Florida for so long, I had forgotten that it is caught in a permanent stasis. I had forgotten that nature likes to change. So as I woke up with the sun, and I felt a familiar chill in the air that I hadn’t felt since I moved from Montana in 2002. A gentle crispness that, though mild, is a promise of much colder days to come.

In Izmir, Autumn is the season for celebration, the end of the fasting months of Ramazan, the end of the sweltering summer. As I write I am watching ladies string vegetables together to be dried. One by one the air conditioners will be turned off, replaced by open windows. I hear that, in Istanbul, the trees are just beginning to turn red.

I have not been this excited in a long, long time.

October 23 Journal

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” -J.R.R. Tolkien

I am just beginning to scratch the surface. Of what, I am not entirely sure. But I feel it coming like the silhouette of some obscure figure walking toward you that you can’t quite make out. Like some revelation, I really don’t know how to describe it. But you know what they say: One wanders for distraction, one travels for fulfillment. And I suppose in this emptiness, this loneliness I have been fulfilled. How ironic.

When one lacks external intimacy, deep solid mental connections with those whom you have known always, and who know you, one finds a more internal friendship. You begin to tap into things that weren’t there before. To draw from a well that has been covered with comfort and familiarity; and forgotten. You begin to explore the depths of your own mind, to think in mysterious ways otherwise unfamiliar. When you cannot speak or be understood, you learn to fall back into the peripheral vision of your world. You learn to become an observer, a passerby, a wanderer who is bound to nothing.

Recently, I have been amazed at the fact that I can understand a percentage of the conversation, and more amazing still, I am beginning to think in this strange new language. The other day in class, I was reading a book and someone from a university in America came to the school to advertise their college. When I heard the English spoken fluently, and without an accent; at first I didn’t even know what I was hearing. Some sharp and unattractive sound that scratched at my ears. It took me about 10 seconds to realize that it was English. And then I couldn’t read at all after that because the sound was too disturbing to me. Turkish is a beautiful language that is so smooth and sweet, like cream and honey.

School has started and it is boring, I’m not going to lie. Even if I could understand what was being said, it would still be boring. But I have made many friends. I have started giving kickboxing lessons in the gymnasium after class, and the kids are really liking it. Because this city is very dangerous. Everyone has been mugged at least once, most people twice and one kid had been mugged 5 times. So they were all eager at the chance to learn some self defense and I was more than eager to contribute something that didn’t involve strenuous conversation. The kids have really improved, especially one boy, who seems to have found his hidden talent. I speculate that by the end of two months he will be able to beat me easily.

However, insomnia has become a real problem. I can’t sleep at night, and I just lay in bed for hours on hours with my eyes closed. Then I am exhausted in class and lack energy or enthusiasm. When I come home, I play the piano and guitar for about an hour or two, and then crash on my bed until about 8:30, when dinner is eaten, I check my email, and then I go to lay down for another sleepless night. It is getting brutal and my host mom is becoming concerned. I don’t know what to do. Usually I just let it take its course and in a month it should be gone, like it always has gone before. But this bout is lasting longer than ever before and I have no idea when it will end. Oh well, hakuna matata.

It is starting to get REALLY cold now. I walk around the house in my sweater and I wear my good jacket to school. I think it’s ridiculous that the girls still have to wear skirts, even in freezing weather, but there is nothing I can do. Every day at lunch, I watch the red and gold leaves fall onto the ground. I hear them crunch under my feet as I walk. I feel the uncomfortable but welcome chill of the wind, which only promises to get sharper. I can’t wait for winter.

*RANDOM MOMENT* “…..what is this…?” “Ferarbachemlachmedakumblakuhajhjhdkfhkdhfkhsdkfh” “umm…I don’t think this is what I ordered” … the man at the table just stares at me, my Turkish is still not good enough for me to tell him anything more than that. He says something quickly and gives me the evil eye. His strange mustache seems to glare at me, and I can’t stop staring at it, so I just nod. My host mom and I were passing through a small fishing village that I couldn’t even pronounce the name of, she needed to get some gas and some snacks on our way to Cesme, so she told me I could go buy a treat somewhere. I had gone into this little shop that had said “Pasta ve Kurabiye” – cakes and cookies. So I walk inside, look at the menu, see a picture of something that looks pretty delicious and I told the waiter that I wanted it. He then came back 5 minutes later with this very disgusting looking glob of a mess on a plate.

So… I look at it, and I thought about tasting it. Then I gingerly took a tiny bit with my fork and I smelled it. Nothing. I proceeded to put a small amount in my mouth. And it felt like God had just violently flung me into some alternate universe where miracles really do happen. In a split second I was lost in some indescribable ecstasy that my taste buds had never known before. Dreams do come true. My eyes widened, I forgot to breathe. It was, hands down, the most amazing thing I had ever tasted. Neither English nor Turkish contained a word for this amazing mass of unknown flavors that were spinning around inside my mouth. I couldn’t bring myself to swallow, it felt like blasphemy. Like in Greek legend when a mere mortal would die if he ate the ambrosia of the Gods. When I finally did swallow, a felt a tear roll down my cheek. Yes, I cried. I could only eat one more small bite, or I would have probably exploded.

The rest of the time I just sat there looking at it like it was some incredible, fascinating work of art. For 10 minutes I stayed there, stupefied, dumbfounded, at a complete loss for words. Finally my host mom walks in, says it’s time to go. I tell her to try a bite, she looks at it, wrinkles her nose, and just walks away. As though in a trance, I walk away too, but before I shut the door, I indulge in one last glance behind me, and said my silent goodbye to the mysterious “Ferarbachemlachmedakumblakuhajhjhdkfhkdhfkhsdkfh” and tried to recall what it had tasted like. But like a dream, the flavor was already beginning to fade.

January 14 Journal

Winter.

Half way done with my exchange. New exchange students basking in their optimism, bubbling with excitement and suspense. It has been a year since I was in their position. I feel like a completely different person. I have become much calmer and much more docile. And though I hate to say it, detached and increasingly apathetic. I see my days drifting by in silence and neutrality. This insomnia is becoming so unbearable, I have no doubt that it is to blame for my current attitude. The circles under my eyes make me look constantly ill. They started out gray, became bluish, then purple, now they are bordering on black. I simply cannot sleep and its driving me insane. Or, rather, the opposite. Its driving me into silence and desperation to feel any kind of enthusiasm for anything. The kids at school are calling me “the child of pain” because, some days, I have to bite my tongue in order to keep my eyes open. My days are systematic and monotonous. As soon as I see the sun come through my window, I get out of bed and watch the sunrise. It is a beautiful thing, accompanied by a call to prayer. To all you exchange students going to Turkey: Be prepared. It is one of the most beautiful things about this country.

I can sometimes, with the holy man raising his voice to the heavens, carrying all his sadness and prayers in the bitter winter wind, summon my old fascination and enthusiasm for this experience. But as I get dressed for school, shivering with the cold, and walk down to the bus stop, I begin to lose it again. After school, I have to go home, change, and then go straight to my host grandmother’s house, because my host mom doesn’t like for me to be at home alone. I stay there until about 8:30, when she gets back from work. I then practice my piano and guitar for hours, usually playing long into the night, for, it is the only thing I can do.

On the weekends, if I get permission (which is rarely) I hang out with my best friend named Oz. He really helps me with my Turkish and I thoroughly enjoy every minute spent with him, because he makes me feel happy. Its as simple as that. However, I’m pretty sure God (Allah in this case) doesn’t want us to be friends. Because whenever my host mom lets us see each other, things always go terribly wrong. We will begin walking and it will rain. I will get really sick on a day we were supposed to go see a movie together, my guitar string will break when we are jamming together, we go to the store to cook a dinner that we always wanted to cook, and they are out of milk. MILK! We go to another store, get the milk, come home, and it is sour. We go to another store, get the milk, come home, make the food. Its delicious, but just as we are picking up our plates, the power goes out and we run into each other, spilling the contents of our plates all over the precious rug. These are just a few of the countless examples of the unfortunate things that happen to us any time we are together. We often laugh about how Allah is probably just using us for his amusement, and when he’s done, he’ll probably just strike us with lightning.

My brother back in America just turned 21, which reminds me that life back home still goes on, even when I’m not looking.

The strangest thing happened the other day. I was laying my head down in class, and the boy who sits in front of me leaned his chair back in such a way that his back was pressed against my hands. I couldn’t understand why it felt so nice. It took me about a minute to realize that this was pretty much the first physical contact I’d had since I came here.

I really have to fight myself, every day, not to allow myself to feel animosity towards my host mom. We just don’t fit well together. I know that any type of anger and negativity will only hurt myself, and make things miserable for both of us. I dont want to be angry. I don’t want to be filled with that poisonous rage, all it does is damage your soul. I wish, I try, every day, to be above it all, but I am not a saint. However, that’s what life is. Every day we wake up is a chance to make ourselves better. Thousands of chances to learn and to grow. If anything, I feel like this journey was put in front of me so I could learn patience and understanding. Much easier said than done, as I have always been surrounded by people I love, and who love me. But now, I am forced to spend all my time with someone whom I don’t understand, and don’t particularly like. Trying to put myself in her shoes has proved to be a bigger challenge than I imagined, as her antics still make no sense to me. But, if this were all easy, what would we learn?

Please don’t misunderstand me. No, I am not having the time of my life. No, this is not the best year ever. Yes, this is the most educational year ever. Yes, I am doing everything I said I would do here. Learn a new culture and language. Yes, it is difficult. But that is what will make you so much stronger in the end. I will not give up, or give in to apathy and indifference. I must fight through this period with my head held high and my mind open. Nothing ever really ends, it only changes. I don’t, nor will I ever, regret a thing.

March 9 Journal

Merhaba everyone.

It’s been a while since my last journal, and I am very happy to say things have changed quite dramatically. I switched host families, which has been by far the best decision I have made since my arrival in Turkey. My new host family is wonderful. I have a 15 year old host sister, and it is so strange how quickly we have bonded already. Now that we are past the dangerous business of getting to know each other, we are already comfortable together. She kicks me in the butt every time I bend over, I turn off the light whenever she is in the bathroom, you know how it goes. My lifestyle has changed drastically, instead of staying home all day and going out for 2 hours once a week, my new family encourages me to go out all the time. They trust me. I get the benefit of the doubt, something I never had with my old host family.

Oh yeah, and just to show how psycho my old host mom was; the day I moved, she stole my passport and visa and then called the police saying that there was an illegal alien living in such and such address (the address of my new host family) and she tried to get me deported. I got my passport back, and everything is fine now, thank god. I am so glad to be out of that house. I just regret having spent 6 months with her. I have a little more than 3 months left now.

I have a wonderful exchange friend with whom I spend hours upon hours with, plotting ways to cheat the system. We do this so well that we have become the class valedictorians, tied with a score of 100%, in a class of 1,700 students. We have found the strings that control the system and we found out how to move them. We can now get away with almost anything. For instance, our school is closed campus, no one is allowed in or out without written permission. So what we do is, go to the southern perimeter of the school (less teachers) and call over one of the various street vendors. (Since all teachers know you are foreign, they don’t say anything even if they do see you.) Tell him you will give him one Lira to go to the Doner stand and buy one. (Doner costs 2.5 Lira) You give him 50 Krus and tell him he gets the other 50 when you get the Doner. Once you get the Doner, you put it in an inconspicuous little bag so no teachers suspect anything. Then you sell said Doner to the hungry students for 5 Lira. Pocketing 1.5 Lira. You can use these funds to buy yourself even better lunches, like Kebab. Congratulations. You have just beat the system.

I might reveal the other techniques when I am back in my own country and cannot be reprimanded for their practice. (Just kidding Al) …

However, I seem to have found myself unknowingly singing ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe with my friend’s band for the school talent show. When you have insomnia, short term memory is the first thing to go. Followed by a feeling of transparency and insubstantiality. Basically, your mind has trouble separating what really went down, from what you just imagined.

So, apparently, what really went down was (I received this memory from my exchange friend I mentioned above, who was sitting next to me at the time). I was zoning out at my desk, listening to music, when a group of 5 boys from my school come rushing into my classroom. I was jumpy and a little taken aback by their stampede towards my desk. They were all out of breath and had a wild look of excitement on their faces. Out of the 5 said faces I recognized three to be kids from my class. Each of them began speaking Turkish at a rapid rate, it was extremely difficult to follow. Plus, in my surprise, I had forgotten to take the headphones out of my ears. This my friend did for me. Basically (and I find this pretty impressive seeing as the dissonant flurry of words would have been hard to understand in English), I got “We are doing a song for a talent show, you are a musician, can you help us please?” I said I would. They all exploded in cheers and ran away as fast as they had run in. I then turned to my friend and said that they probably just wanted help transposing the notes from one key to another or something. (End of friend’s memory.)

The following day I learn from a phone call that I am to meet the group of boys in their studio in Alsancak. I go, bringing my guitar in case they need it for something. I arrive and they tell me to go to the microphone. “Ne?” Yeah, go to the mic, you are singing. Houston, we have just lots cabin pressure. I tried in vain to explain to them that I don’t sing. But they will have none of it. My heart in my throat I take the mic (thank god I knew the words to that song) and I began to sing. I actually wasn’t as bad as I had feared, and once I got comfortable, we ended up having a blast. We went through a whole set of songs from their collective repertoire, ranging from rock, to blues, to metal. Once again I am grateful to my past self for learning to sing like James Hetfield as a joke when I was young. I knew almost every song, they shared my taste in music almost exactly. Once the session was over, I was actually excited to sing on stage next month. In front of 1,700 kids…

Never mind.

May 21 Journal

What a strange and interesting year this has been. With only just over four weeks left, the whole spectrum of emotions, this whole crazy adventure is beginning to make sense. As time passes, events of the past begin to fit together, and you see the meaning in them that you may have missed before.

As I sit here in my little room, my window open, letting in the cool afternoon breeze. I see my city, MY city, placidly winding down. I watch the bakers and the fishermen return to their homes and their families. I watch women hanging clothes out to dry, beating the dirt out of their rugs, peeling vegetables. Their lives seem too simple from far away. I watch children playing futbol in the alleyway, getting yelled at by the neighborhood widow to keep the noise down. The Hocam will sing his prayers soon, and I will accompany it on my guitar, so that I can learn middle eastern scales. Everything is quiet, everything is peaceful. I feel at rest here.

These past two months have been among the richest and most fulfilling of my life. I have taken my new freedom and ran with it, barreling headfirst into all the things I have wanted to do, but couldn’t before. I feel like I knew nothing about this country before I moved in with my new family. There is so much here to enjoy, so much to do, so much to experience. I am making new friends every day and I am doing so much all the time that I am exhausted by the end of the day and I can finally sleep. Oh, the wonders of sleep. Such an amazing thing.

The best thing, the thing that has changed everything for me, is my band. These boys have become my best friends. I have never met anyone else like them. Their talent, their creativity, their flexibility and innovation is awe inspiring. I am honored, and humbled, to make music with them.

For the past couple of months, we have been playing in bars and night clubs mostly. We were just starting out and those were the only places that would book us. Then we heard about this battle of the bands competition, and the grand prize would be 5,000 TL (about $4,500) We were reluctant, but we decided to enter. We practiced all the time, not knowing what to expect. There were three stages of the competition. The first was tryouts, to see if you could compete at all. That was only about one hundred people. Mainly the bands and their families. We passed that, and then the real work began. We decided to play Enter Sandman for the competition. Two weeks later, the day finally came. And I will count it as one of the greatest moments of my life. We performed on stage at the fairgrounds in front of 2,000 people. I had never been so nervous.

There were lots of different kinds of musicians there. There were some acoustic hippies, some jazz kids, some punks, some metros, some snobs, and wannabees, and then there was us, the metal heads. Metal doesn’t get much respect over here. Most of the bands were playing Turkish pop. But as soon as we came out, and announced what we were playing, the whole place cheered. Kids in Turkey don’t really go to concerts, so the things that we did, such as headbanging and stage diving, they had never seen it before. They were going crazy. I will never forget, ever, when I looked down and saw a bunch of hippies in a mosh-pit. It serves as one of my proudest moments. We had them eating out of the palm of our hands. If I threw my hands in the air, they cheered louder, if I jumped up and down, they jumped up and down. If I told them to scream until they couldn’t talk tomorrow, that’s exactly what they did.

Our guitarist nailed his solo, and he played the last few notes with his tongue, which made all the girls in the audience freak out. Everyone was on their feet and cheering, people were throwing their shirts and telephone numbers on the stage. When the song was over, we got a minute long standing ovation. We won that competition, and then we went to the capitol, Ankara, for the finals, where we competed against the thirty other winners from the other major cities. There were 8,000 people there.

We won that competition too, and we won the 5,000. I have never been happier. It felt like all our hard work had finally paid off. We then got interviewed and I did the interview in Turkish, which surprised them all. When we came home, we were bombarded with praise and smiles and celebrations. I love my band mates, and it makes me happy to see them so happy. I would do anything for them.

They are all extremely excited, but I can’t help but choke on the bitter-sweetness of the whole thing. Because this is my dream. Since I was twelve years old I have wanted to make music. I used to imagine these exact same scenarios in my head. I finally find this incredible group of musicians with so much to offer, so many untapped resources just waiting to be released, and I am right here, in the middle of it, experiencing it with them. And I have it in the palm of my hand, and now I have to leave. For the first time, the thought of going home is no longer pleasant. All I can think of is how I can go back to America, when everything I have wanted is right here in front of me. How can I pass up this incredible opportunity?

I consider this place my home. This bed is MY bed. These streets are no longer intimidating and daunting, they are welcoming and familiar. This language has began to permanently occupy my thoughts. These people, these incredible, generous, loving, passionate and amazing people are my friends. They are my family. I would die for many of them.

I have to hold on to the time I have left, I have to savor everything. Because in just a few weeks, I have to go back to my own country. I can honestly say that this goodbye is going to be harder than the first one, just because I really may never see these people again. This thought scares and saddens me. This place has become my home.

Lauren’s Bio

You’re a harbinger of good things to come

A sign that it’s all changing for me.

It’s a happiness, euphoria

Something out of a fantasy.

And that is exactly how I felt when I received that one phone call informing me that I would be going to Brazil for my junior year of high school. When I hung up the phone all sorts of emotions hit me at once. It was probably one of the happiest moments in my life, and probably the biggest life change in such few words. I can guarantee that I have absolutely no clue how this will effect my life, but I know it will. This knowledge has brought up a very common question … Who exactly am I?

The easiest, most unique way to describe me is I am Lauren Youngerman. I attend Fleming Island High School as a sophomore. I’ve spent all of my sixteen years living in northeastern Florida, and I am a total wimp when it comes to cold weather. I started off my life being an only child, but about a month after my fifth birthday I had to move over and share my family with my brother Tristan. Since then we’ve gone through many things together as a family, and I love them dearly. Throughout the years we’ve also gone through many pets, leaving us with our current dog named Jake, and cat named Spaz.

Well yes, that is all the easy stuff…. Yet again, the question does appear, Who exactly am i? Being a “Lauren Youngerman” that defines me as many things. Fun, unique, crazy, kind, caring, lovable, helpful, independent, friendly, entertaining, and so much more that would take forever to list! If sounding self-centered, that is the last thing I aim to be, I’m just confident on who I am. I’m the kind of girl who will hold her head up high no matter what happens, and I enjoy to make the best of any and every situation.

Fun is guaranteed when I’m in a place. Anybody would easily agree with me, no matter the situation, I can make things fun. There isn’t much that I do grudgingly, and I will try everything. Sure, sure try everything, but one may ask what I really truly love to do. Sailing is my most favorite thing to do in the world, and I try to do it whenever I can. I love the feel of rushing across the water being powered by an aspect of weather, the wind pushing me along the horizon. It truly is a magical feeling. I also enjoy the simple pleasures of life, however, such as hanging out with friends and family, exploring what there is around, shopping, and just watching a decent movie.

Well, I’d have to say, that pretty much sums me up. I’m ready for anything life throws at me, and I’m very excited about being able to spend a year abroad. I’d like to thank everyone who has made this wonderful opportunity possible, and I’m very honored to be a part of it.

 Lauren’s Journals

September 24 Journal

Oi Florida! Tudo bom?

So I’ve been in Brazil for over a month, and I’ve done an AMAZING job at putting off this journal. It’s not that I don’t have anything exciting to write about, but it’s just that I keep putting it off, I’m a master at procrastination. Sorry about that (: So, how do I put the most amazing month and a half of my life into words? It’s honestly not at all fully possible, it’s been so much more than I expected and over all just completely wonderful. I’ve had the best experience of my life so far, and I’m sure it’s only going to get better.

I left the United States August 2, 2009 on a flight leaving Miami at 9:20 PM (I did have another plane from Jacksonville to Miami before then, however). The 8 hour plane ride went by much quicker than I thought. I only was able to sleep for 30 minutes but I kept myself entertained by watching a movie and coloring, and I spent nearly 4 hours coloring in my Disney coloring book that I brought along. Landing in Salvador led me to confusion. Almost no one in the airport spoke English and I had such a hard time trying to find where I go to check back in to another flight after Customs! But luckily I experienced right off the warm and friendliness of the Brazilians and someone showed me the way. 3 hours later, I was on a plane again on my way to my city! I hadn’t really began feeling anything until I began to see the beach and the outline of a big city in the distance. I instantly knew I was going to fall in love with this beautiful beach city.

Leaving the plane I was greeted by my host family waiting outside the doors for me. Exiting that airport was stepping into another world I was so unprepared for, so excited for, and so ready for.

Sometimes, it’s so hard to believe I’m doing this. I’ve become so accustomed to everything that goes on in my life here, it’s feeling all too normal! I have to remind myself sometimes that I’m in Brazil. I already can see myself changing, I know I will never be that same girl I was before I left.

School here is wonderful. I don’t understand a thing, but it’s good. Everyone here is so much louder in the US, and at times school is so much more fun. However, one thing I noticed upon reading my friend’s journals was that most of them seemed to be really enjoying English class. Honestly, my English class is my LEAST favorite class. I don’t understand ANYTHING! How, one might ask, can I not understand a class that teaches the language that I actually know? Well, to begin with, my English teacher does NOT know English, she’s taught the class things that are wrong, I try to tell her and she ignores me because she doesn’t know what I’m saying. Also, when people try to ask me a question on how to write a certain form of a sentence, I get so confused! These were things I learned maybe in the 2nd grade and do not remember a single thing about! My friends here are quite disappointed that I can never help them with their English work. On my first English test I received a mark of 7.3/10 on the test. That shows how well my English is, right? Well besides English class, I have a variety of other classes which I still can’t remember what they are or what days they come on. I know I have 2 chemistry classes, 2 physics classes, 2 biology classes, a math class, a Portuguese class, a gym class, an English class, a composition class, and I think maybe another one or two that I’m forgetting. Here, teachers switch classes instead of students, so I never had to worry about going to the wrong classes. Overall though, school started off great but now has just become school, but I completely adore it and the people inside!

About my city? Rotary didn’t tell me that I’d be living my year abroad in complete paradise. I live an entire four blocks from such a beautiful beach! I go at LEAST once a week. I love it. However, you can’t swim in the beach here (or at least you aren’t supposed to, but I have anyways) because of a shark problem they have in this city. It’s so much more beautiful than the Florida beaches I’ve grown up with. They are definitely much cleaner and much more lively here! Someone is always trying to sell you food or jewelry or clothes or anything on the beach, it’s neat.

Since I’ve come to Brasil, I’ve already been on a few trips, but none of them outside of paradise. I’ve gone to the prettiest beach in the country, in my opinion the world, called Porto de Galinhas. I had never seen anything like that! It is the kind of beach you only see in pictures, yet it was completely real! I’ve gone to Maragogi, a beach in the state to the south, a few times as well. The first time I went to Maragogi was with Rotary. Oh, that was such a wonderful trip! I got to meet the other inbounds in the Norbrex multidistrict, they are all such lovely people. This was our inbound orientation, and we honestly did little with Rotary. We spent the weekend creating friendships, playing games, swimming in the ocean, building sculptures out of people buried in the sand, dancing, eating, feeding monkeys, turning guys into girls and vice versa, and overall just having an amazing time! I adore the other inbounds and cannot wait to see them again in December! I also went to Maragogi this weekend, but this time with my family and my sister’s best friend to my family’s beach house. I had a lot of fun (:

Brazilian food is the best thing in the world, really. I was a vegetarian before coming here, and I hadn’t eaten beef in YEARS. I just thought it was nasty. Now you wouldn’t hear me say that or even anything close. I love the meat in Brasil. There is such a variety of meats and flavors, it’s all delicious! A fairly common food here is chicken hearts, and as disgusting as that sounds, it’s very good.

Many of my friends here say that they prefer American (US) food more than Brazilian food. I am usually very confused by this statement and have to ask them what they mean by “American” food. This leads to disappointment for me, they respond with “Oh, my favorite is the Big Mac!” or just simply say “McDonald’s.” I then usually hear about how when they think of the US, all they think of is McDonald’s and Disney. It disappoints me to hear this, I don’t even like McDonald’s, but I’m glad I can be here to make an impact and change their views on what they think of “All Americans”. In being an exchange student, I realize there is a lot thought about me, especially when I am in a place that hasn’t seen other exchange students from Florida. They look up to me, this is how they will think of Americans. It’s a lot of responsibility, but I think I can handle it!

One can easily see that I’ve changed, at least a little already, and will continue changing. I’m welcoming said change. I’m also helping change the world around me by “sharing the sunshine state with the world”. Thank you Rotary for giving me this opportunity, I’m going to make the most of it.

Beijos!

-Lauren Youngerman

December 1 Journal

Oiiiiiiiii Florida! It’s been a while, huh?

I’d like to begin with apologizing on how long it has taken me to write this journal. It’s hard, so many things happen at once and you can’t help but be overwhelmed. Brazil is treating me wonderfully! I’m having a tremendous time, and it’s only getting better! I have the most wonderful friends (some Brazilian, some other exchangers), a great family, and the most beautiful city.

Since my last journal I’ve done many things. I’ve gotten incredibly ill, I’ve visited some of the most beautiful cities nearby (Olinda), I’ve gone to the beach countless times, I’ve seen new moon at midnight with my host family, I’ve gone out with exchange students, I’ve gone out with Brazilians, and oh so much more. However, recently was when the real fun started to happen. A couple weeks ago I went to Miribilandia, a local “theme park”, with my school. Honestly? The park was terrible. It has very few rides/attractions, and some of the rides are the same ones that we have at our local fairs in Florida. It was an amazing day however. I know the rides definitely disappointed me, and I was going through kind of a funk at the time where I was just completely having a bad day. But this time of the year, the park hosts its Nights of Terror, where every night there are shows of pirates and cannibals while they run around the park with other frightening figures scaring people and there are also multiple horror houses to enter which will scare the socks off of you! This didn’t scare me at all, but it definitely made my day. Actually, no, what made this trip so great wasn’t because of the monsters, but my friends’ faces in fear of the monsters. The most hilarious thing I think I had seen. It was so wonderful; it was an amazing day for sure. I always have a good time with my friends from school. They are such wonderful people.

I’ve also done some pretty amazing things as well. A couple of weeks ago, Rotary had this “small walk” on the beach. This “small walk” was actually 25 kilometers, which is approximately 15 miles. I am not sure if I’m proud, or angry with myself/Rotary to be able to say I walked the entire way. It was pretty great though. With all my exchange student buddies, we walked along some of the prettiest beaches for 25 kilometers and just had a blast. When we finally arrived at the house we were going to, we had lunch and went swimming in the pool. All the Americans and other pale skinned foreigners were bright shades of red, and everyone was just exhausted. That morning, I woke up at 5 to make this walk, and we met at the beach at around 5:30… That’s even earlier than I wake up for school! I didn’t return to my house until maybe around 5 or 6 that evening, and shortly after I made plans to go to a party that night. I ended up staying at this party until after 4 AM and I arrived in my house shortly after 5. This was the most killer 24 hour day of my life, but definitely a great one. I had so much fun, and I really do love all of the people here.

Saturday, I went to a place where they make sugar. That was actually kind of interesting, minus the horrible smell. However I think what made it so great was going with the other exchangers. Not only did we go with the 8 kids in my city, but we went with about 16 or 17 other exchange kids from other nearby cities. When we arrived at this sugar cane factory place, we were made to wear these very sexy hard hats, and bright orange ear plugs. Watching the sugar cane being transformed into sugar and then into other products, such as Álcool for cars, was a really different and neat experience.

After that the 20 something of us piled into a small bus and took off for lunch. While eating lunch, I spotted a monkey in the restaurant. Not a little picture of a monkey, or a stuffed animal, but a living monkey climbing around the restaurant walls. This is one of those “Only in Brazil…” moments. Before coming to this country, I had never seen a wild monkey climb around in a restaurant, or have cats walk by and rub up against my leg in the middle of lunch, and the strangest part is that nobody thinks anything of it! It’s completely normal!

After lunch we all piled back onto the bus and went to a “reserva floresta Darwin.” We took a hike through the woods while being told about plants and such, and how many of the plants only found in Brazil are used in many medicines. It was pretty neat, and the best part was when our little tour guy dude spoke about this stuff –  it was in Portuguese but I could understand everything he was saying! This is always a wonderful feeling. After our little hike, we went over to this little place to see animals. The animals we got to see were a 2-headed snake, a “dog rat”, a variety of screaming monkeys, a two-toed sloth, and a large snake. There was something very interesting about these last two though, we all got to hold them and take pictures with them! That was really neat. I never would have thought of having a giant snake draped around my shoulders and feeling it slowly move with every muscle across my arms, or of being able to pet the fuzzy lazy animal that I only ever see in the Jacksonville Zoo when it’s sleeping! I really had so much fun this day.

Portuguese is a very difficult language, but I understand it more and more each day! I can’t say I’m fluent yet because commonly I stumble over words or am not quite sure what I’m trying to say or just some days I can’t seem to understand anything… But I am learning! Commonly when I talk to friends or family back home I catch myself slipping into saying something in Portuguese, or when I’m talking with friends here in English I suddenly change languages on them. It’s really cool thinking about this. Sometimes I even begin to think in somewhat broken Portuguese! However, I have not had a dream yet in this language, and that’s a real downer. I’ve been here for almost four months, and still nothing. I can’t wait for it to happen though!

Well, that’s all that is occupying my mind at the moment, except for the fact that I’ve got a lot to look forward to! My birthday is quinta, or Thursday, which also marks 4 months in Brazil. I’m quite excited and I plan on going to the beach for sure (since I can do that here). There is a downside though. My host parents will be in FLORIDA on my birthday, visiting Orlando and Disney World (How slightly ironic, huh?). Either way, I’ll still have a good 17th Birthday, and I’m actually really excited about that. A week and a half after my birthday, I get to go to a nearby city in the north east, called Natal, with all of the other exchange students. This will be a blast, I can’t wait. Then after that, Christmas and New Years, and so much more! J Sometimes, recently, I’ve been feeling quite homesick (because of the holidays and such), but all that I’ve got to look forward to and my amazing friends get me through it all! Eu amo Brasil!

Again, I must say Obrigada to everyone who has helped me get here. Thank you Rotary for making this possible, Thank you Rotarians for helping me out along the way, Thank you Mom and Dad for just being there and helping my dream become reality, and Thank You to anyone and everyone else who deserves a thank you!

P.S. In my last journal, I mentioned paradise. Right now I’d like to take a moment to reflect on that. It hasn’t changed, it is currently around 80-something degrees outside, and it will only get slightly warmer for the next few months. Because of this, right now I LAUGH at all of you back in FL or in more northern countries at the moment. I hate the cold, so this area of Brazil is absolutely perfeito para mimJ. It’s also very nice being on summer vacation right now, not having to wake up for school in the morning, and being able to go to the beach or shopping center every day? Oh, it’s simply perfect!

January 9 Journal

Before I begin telling you about my life in paradise, I’d like to wish everyone a feliz ano novo, or a happy new year. I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and New years, and wish that all is well for you in the new decade.

Since my last journal a lot of things have happened. In December my parents and friends threw a surprise birthday party for me at the local Pizza Hut, my best friend took me out to dinner on my birthday (which I spent most of the day at the beach), I went to Natal with all the other exchangers, I survived Christmas away from my family and friends, and so much more.

One weekend in December we went to a city in the northeast called Natal for our “Natal em Natal” (Literally translating into Christmas in Christmas, but the second “Natal” is the name of the city), and it was just absolutely wonderful. We stayed with families rather than staying in a hotel. The family I stayed with was really wonderful, I stayed with a girl (Paula) who went to the US a couple years ago and who has walls COVERED in harry potter, no joke. Paula and I quickly bonded over the food we miss from the US, such as Froot Loops and Mexican food, and easily became friends. Saturday, the only full day we had in Natal, began quickly. We were on the beach at 9:00 in the morning to help clean the already decently clean beach, and to give Christmas presents to the kids who helped us.

After this we all piled into a numerous number of Buggys and took off for the dunes. Being from Florida, just the site of these dunes was breath taking. These sand dunes were notably bigger than any hill I’ve ever seen in Florida. This experience was completely terrifying but undeniably one of the most fun things I’ve done. It was like a rollercoaster without restraints through mountains of sand. Near to the ending of our great sand adventure we stopped to take a group picture and hold some animals. In this area, when you looked around, you didn’t see much other than sand for such quite a distance. Here, there was a guy with a monkey, and a guy with an iguana that allowed you to hold and take pictures with the animals. So, I held a monkey. Actually, I didn’t hold it. That little monkey jumped around from people to people if anyone was near by. The little monster attacked my sunglasses which were on my face at the time, but it was incredibly cute. After our little break we all packed up and headed back to the dunes and on our way to a little stop where you could take something like a swing on a zip line into a lake. That was an incredible amount of fun. Once everybody got their turn, we headed out to lunch then back to meet with our host families again to eat dinner and get some rest before our party that night. Our party began at 10 PM and lasted till around 3:30 am. It was nice to be with all the exchangers talking, dancing, eating, and just having a good time (:. The next morning was even earlier, we had to meet at 8:00 in the morning for breakfast, and shortly after we were on our way back to our cities again. It was kind of sad knowing that I wouldn’t see most of these amazing people again until the district conference, but it was awesome because the kids from Aracaju (a city farther south, by a 10 hour bus ride or so) came to Recife that day.

My host parents were still in Florida at the time, so I ended up staying over at the house of Laya, my best friend from Germany. However, the exchange students from Aracaju needed a place to stay as well, and we ended up having 5 people in total sleep in Laya’s reasonably small room. Lexie, from the US, Johanna, from Germany, and Erin, from Canada, all stayed with us. We really had a blast. That night we went out to Skillus, a little restaurant in the shopping, to have dinner with all the other exchanger students from Aracaju and some Rotex. We then returned home and stayed up late just talking about all sorts of things, and just had a good time. Eventually we got to sleep and were awoken early the next morning to travel with everyone to Olinda and Recife Antigo. The day was a blast and ended with us going out to a bar with all the exchange students from both cities for several hours. Most of these people I don’t see or talk to too much, but still people that there is no problem connecting and talking to. I really love the group of exchange students in Norbrex. Everyone is really wonderful, and I’m really grateful to have such good friends here from all over the world. The next morning, the Aracaju exchangers packed up their van and headed back home. It was sad to say goodbye, because they are so far away, but I know I’ll see them again some dayJ. Finally, I went back to my home where my host parents had already arrived home from their Florida vacation as well.

However, December was a difficult month for me, but I’m sure it was difficult for most people. I was away from friends and family on my birthday and Christmas, and I did get a bit homesick. Here in Brasil, it’s summer time at the moment, and I’m so close to the equator at sea level, meaning it was quite far from chilly. Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas, and there weren’t any crazy different traditions. Of course Christmas was definitely different. Instead of celebrating on the 25th, we celebrated on Christmas Eve. I went to my host grandmother’s house for a ham and turkey dinner, and nobody could open any presents until midnight. It was nice, but I definitely admit that I miss the anticipation of waking up on Christmas morning to go look under the tree to see what was left there for me the night before.

Before I knew it, Christmas was over, and I was packed into the car with my host family on the way to their beach house in the beautiful town of Maragogi, where we spent our New Years. We spent 5 days there laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, staying up till 5 am to watch the sun rise, going to the pool, playing in the sand, laying in the hammocks, and just had a great time.

New Year’s Eve, it’s common to wear certain colors to bring good luck into the New Year. Most people wear white because it symbolizes peace. I’m not sure what any of the other colors symbolize, but most people just stick with white anyways. I transitioned into the new year sipping champagne (less than half of a flute of it) with my host family on one of the prettiest beaches I’ve ever been to, watching the fireworks shoot off all along the beach and looking up at the stars. It was wonderful. Sadly, I got sick around 2 am and decided it was best if I went to sleep. For some unknown reason I always get sick to the stomach whenever we go to the beach house. However, at 3:40 I received a phone call from my best friend who was still back in Recife wishing me a happy new year. This phone call woke me up just in time to go see the first sunrise of the year on a beautiful beach in paradise. I relaxed on the beach till around 5 when I was tired and decided to go back to sleep. I then woke up around noon, and the crazy Brazilian summer vacation cycle started all over again, and I wasn’t back in bed until 5am on the 2nd of January.

Ever since arriving here, I do believe that the number one cause of sleep deprivation is Brazil. I had one day of rest after coming back, then the next day I was out with friends again. This week I’ve been to several different parts of the city, out to Olinda, to Plaza Shopping on the other side of the city, to Shopping Recife several times, the beach numerous times, a variety of bars, and to several cinemas. This week I’ve been inviting anyone and everyone out, because I simply do not want to be sitting around at home all day every day. It’s been great.

Monday was tough, I got some bad news and was upset most of the day, but then I went on Tuesday out with Laya to see Avatar on her side of the city (that’s an hour and 20 minutes of busses just to get there) and everything was better. Wednesday I went to my shopping center with Laya where I bought these beautiful enormous shoes, and then out with my sister and a bunch of people to an oyster bar that night. That was fun. Thursday I spent the day at the beach with Carol (my sister) and some of our friends. That day ended with going out to see Couple’s Retreat that night. Friday we went to the Center of the city to this little market that was seriously located inside of an old prison. Call me weird or whatever, but that really was a creepy feeling for me. The little stands/shops were located in the old cells, and it was full of people, and I was just overcome with this incredibly creepy feeling. Afterwards, we went out to Olinda to take some photos of the beautiful city. That night my sister and I once more ventured out to the cinema with friends to watch Sherlock Holmes. I wasn’t overly impressed, but we had fun. We then got a bite to eat and headed home. Some friends of ours were at downstairs in our building, so we stayed out with them till around 2 before going back and going to sleep. This week has been incredibly exhausting, and I honestly haven’t gotten too much sleep!

There’s so much to look forward to, and I’m so excited about everything! Maybe this upcoming week I will be taking a trip to Natal again to visit Paula and see the city a little better. I will change host families on the 19 or 20 (Note, I’m still in my first host family). Carnival is in February, and that’s definitely an experience I’m looking forward to. School will start, and I will meet new people again. Life is just great at the moment, I’m enjoying every day in Brazil, and I don’t want to be anywhere else but here. I can understand full conversations in Portuguese, and I can take part in them.

However, I know I will never fit in completely here in Brazil. I look incredibly American, but I kind of like that. It’s kind of fun and nice to have people stop on the street and tell me that I’m incredibly beautiful, and then continue on once more. It does nicely for the self esteemJ. However, I’m still not dreaming in Portuguese. However when I dream, I seem to notice it lacks a language. There’s never any speaking, thinking, or dialect. I remember feelings, but never words. I’m thinking in Portuguese sometimes now. Not all the time of course, and I know this. Sometimes, I’m incredibly confused on what language I’m thinking in. I catch myself remembering conversations that were spoken in English completely in Portuguese, and vice versa. When I try to think about what language my thoughts are in, it honestly confuses me. Subconscious thoughts are really hard to follow and remember, and I’m not sure what goes through my mind at times (don’t laugh =P).

Carol, my host sister here, leaves this month for Germany. Germany was never one of my top 5 choices, but I can’t help but feel incredibly jealous of her. She’s getting all of that attention of people wanting to hear about what she’s doing and where she’s going. She’s filling out paperwork, buying presents and pins, clothes and necessities for her trip, and I’m incredibly jealous. Seeing the new outbounds on the site, and knowing that they are going to their first conference at Lake Yale, and starting to prepare for their adventure makes me incredibly jealous. It feels like just yesterday I was filling out my applications, shaking in my seat at my interview, getting that depressing letter in the mail that said “alternate”, getting the call saying I would be living in Brazil for a year, writing my bio, going to Lake Yale and getting lost, meeting some of the best people I’ve ever met (aka RYEFL Exchange students), working on a 12 page report about Brazil, giving a speech in Portuguese (which I’ve honestly not even done in Brazil yet), and just everything.

However, all of this dates back to farther back than a year ago. Half my exchange is almost over, and I’m so glad to be here. Thanks everyone who made this possible. I’m seriously living my dream. I’m changing. I’m learning. I’m teaching. I’m exploring. I’m helping others. I’m being helped. I’m being independent. I’m being ready for anything and everything. I’m trying new things. I’m speaking another language. I’m in a foreign country. I’m having the time of my life. I now have friends and family from all areas of the world. I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t here right now, but I don’t think about it, I don’t really care. Nothing could be better than this.

Thanks Rotary for making this all possible, I’m doing the best I can of representing everyone back there, juro. Thanks to my family, for helping me financially, physically, mentally, and for everything you’ve done for me. Thanks to my friends for always being there for me when I was stressed out. Thanks to everyone. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to be here, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

April 26 Journal

This is honestly the strangest feeling I’ve ever had. I can’t tell you how much I can’t wait to get home, but just the thought of leaving this place brings me to tears. The people, the culture, just everything is now a part of me. I go back home in 72 days, and that scares me even more than boarding a plane to a foreign country where I don’t know anyone for an entire year.

I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m enjoying my time here in Brazil. Seriously, what’s not to love? Since my last journal I have not had much access to a computer or to the internet, which was actually a good thing. A little note for any future exchangers: When the Rotarians tell you not to bring a computer, sure go ahead and bring one, but if you go on everyday to check your facebook and email your friends back home, you won’t be as happy as you could be. Being without connections back home made me just completely forget my life back home. Honestly, now, it’s difficult to tell anyone about my life “back home,” because I think of Brazil as my home now. Florida is a thing of the past, and Recife is where it’s at. Its scary thinking that I’ll have to go home this summer, it’s a scarier thought than leaving for a year to a foreign country where you hardly know the language and you don’t know anybody. But yeah, I’m completely in love with my life hereJ. Since the last time y’all heard from me, a lot has happened, and a lot has changed. I’ve ridden a horse in a fazenda in Gravatá. I’ve fallen off a horse in Gravatá. I’ve gone to the beach several times. I’ve experienced the Brazilian holiday of Carnaval. I’ve started school again. I’ve switched host families. I’ve eaten foods that don’t look to be edible but taste so delicious. I’ve just been enjoying the wonderful Brazilian culture and life style.

January 28 was my last day with my first host family, and the last time I have seen my host sister, Carol, on exchange. I feel terrible, I never had a chance to say goodbye to her because I moved while she was at the movies with friends and she left the next morning to begin her exchange in Germany. At some points of my exchange, we were really distant, but I think within that last month with her we managed to get pretty close. I don’t know if she will end up reading this, but I would like to leave a little goodbye for her:

Carol! Minha irmãzinha! Estou com saudades de você L. Você vai ser minha irmã para sempre. Gostei muito de você, e eu não vou te esquecer. Espero que um dia você vá me visitar na Florida ou eu vou voltar para Brasil. Desculpa que eu não disse “tchau” para você… Eu queria muito, mas estava na aula quando você foi. Estou pensando de você, e to com saudade! Beijos minha irmãzinha!

If you didn’t understand that, don’t worry, it wasn’t about youJ.

So, Yes, I switched host families on January 28, 2010. I really love my new host family. It’s much more “normal” for me. Instead of having two sisters, like the previous family, I only have one younger brother of ten years. My new host family made me feel welcome right away. They are great people, and I’m really glad that I’m living in their home. My new home is two blocks from my first, and about 6 blocks from the beach. Tragic that I live so far away, isn’t it? This is one of the larger buildings in the area with 30 floors and decent sized apartments. I now have my own room to stay in, it’s quite nice. The building is facing the beach, so there is always the most wonderful breeze blowing through to keep things cool. Speaking of the lovely breeze, I have absolutely no complaints on the weather here, it’s perfect. Okay, so back on the topic of my new building, it’s completely filled with life. There’s always a group of kids or teens running around downstairs. We’ve got a decent sized pool and a soccer court. I spend much of my time downstairs just hanging out. The people in the building are pretty amazing too. On the 13th floor, there’s another Rotary exchange student, from Poland, it’s really nice living so close to her. However she’s already gone back to PolandL. On the 29th floor lives a friend of mine who did exchange in Georgia last year and the view from his balcony is one of the prettiest things I’ve like ever seen. Also on the 18th floor lives one of my best friends, I met him here and have become very close with him and his family. I’ve met many other incredibly amazing people in the building as well but I don’t think I’ll bore you by talking about all of them. Within my first two weeks here I decided to play a game of futebol with some of the guys in the building. I can now honestly say I’ve played soccer until my feet have bled. Playing soccer with bare feet hurts the first time you do it; I got some pretty nasty blisters that popped. It hurt to walk for the next week and a half or so, it was pretty bad, but while playing I didn’t notice them at all. I guess I was having too much fun to notice.

Okay, so honestly when I started writing this, it was like early March. Now it’s Mid-April, and I’ve realized that I need to finish it.

So in February the Brazilian holiday of Carnaval took place. I wish I had great exciting stories to tell everyone about this, I’m sure every other exchange student does! Well I went to Olinda one day which was great, and Maragogi beach another. As for all of the other days, I passed really sick. It was not a fun time, and I’m so disappointed that I didn’t get to experience it more.

In March a lot of things happened. Or maybe you would think a lot of things happened, but in truth, not that much has. I’ve just been living my life here. These past eight months have felt like such a short period of time, but yet it’s also felt like forever. I think in Portuguese, I dream in Portuguese, I talk in Portuguese. My friends are Brazilians and other exchange students. My classes aren’t in English, and neither is the language spoken in my home. My English honestly sucks now. But, somehow, all of this is incredibly normal. I’m completely okay with it and wouldn’t want it any other way.

In the end of March I went with Rotary to the Paixão do Cristo. This was an Easter spectacular about the death and rise of Jesus Christ. It was really kind of cool. We hopped into the 3 hour van ride out to Nova Jerusalem and went to see the show. Before we entered, we being exchange students decided to take pictures. Soon enough there were crowds of Brazilian teens swarming us wanting to take pictures with us too. It was quite awkward but yet quite fun as well, Brazilians love their photos! Okay, so then we went in. This show is much different than any other show I had ever been to before. Instead of sitting and having the scenes change behind the curtain, you walked around from scene to scene. I thought it was a cool Idea at first, but after 3 hours of walking, I was exhausted! Afterwards we all headed back home.

The following weekend was Semana Santa, or the Easter weekend. I went to Gravatá with my family and stayed there for several days. I actually got a bit of a tan as well! It’s funny how I go to the beach and get sun burnt and go to a farm to get tanned. Well it was a nice weekend. I ended up going to a friend’s hotel one night and staying out till four. I was incredibly exhausted afterwardsJ.

This past weekend I went out with all the exchange students again to some hydro electrical dams. It was actually a pretty neat trip, but sadly a 7 hour bus ride. It was also quite sad that it was the last time that I might ever see some of those exchange students againL. We left early on a Friday morning and everyone was in the hotel by about 5 PM. We stayed in a little hotel in Paulo Alfonso, Bahia. Friday night after dinner, everyone collected on the roof and most of the exchange students ended up in the pool. There was a little band playing, and all of us were just goofing off and having a good time.

Saturday morning we were off to AL to see Xingo, one of the biggest dams in Brazil, or the biggest, I don’t quite remember. It was neat to see it. After the tour we went to the river that lead to the dam and rode a catamaran boat around. We stopped in this really awesome super deep part of the river with these giant rock walls surrounding to go swimming. We stayed there for a while, got a bit sun burnt, and just had a lot of fun. After we went back, we had lunch, and then started to head back. However before going back, we stopped in this little town called Piranha. Oh my gosh, definitely the worst part of the trip. Rotary, being the evil that it is, made us climb this huuuuuge hill with sooo many steps leading up to the top. This climb nearly killed me, I really do not like stairs. After we finished with this, and went back to the hotel, everyone was pretty much exhausted. It was a much less eventful night.

Sunday morning we all packed up and left the hotel at around 8 in the morning, but we didn’t go home just yet. Our first stop was the Paulo Alfonso Dam. This dam was SO much prettier than Xingo, but for sure much smaller. The river leaving from it also has some pretty waterfalls that we got to go see as well. After this stop we said our final goodbye to some of the exchange students that we will never see again, and began to head back to our cities. It was a really fun trip for sure; I absolutely love my fellow exchange students. I stopped thinking of them as friends a long time ago, these kids are my family. I will definitely miss themL.

Since then, nothing overly interesting has happened in April. It’s just been normal life. Don’t get me wrong, I love EVERY second of it, but it’s something I’ve become so accustomed to that it doesn’t have that initial thrill of “Oh I did this, and this, and I went shopping today, Oh I went to a party and I also did this…” It’s honestly much better this way. I couldn’t imagine things being any different, and I don’t think I’d want them to be. Sure I’ve had difficulties, things aren’t always perfect, but that’s how I learn and grow. I love my life here, and I love all the people in it.

So yes, Brazil has been treating me wonderfully. My English is getting terrible (and please don’t tell me you didn’t notice by reading my journal, even when I re-read it over and over again I can’t seem to get things right. Oh, and my mom comes this weekJ. On April 29, my mom arrives in what has been my home for the last nearly 9 months. It’s a very strange feeling for sure, but I am totally stoked! Without my mom finding the program I probably would have never gotten the chance to come here anyways. I’ll show her that getting me into this program was for sure the right thing to do. Okay, well I’m in the middle of the shopping center right now stealing their free internet, and I gotta get home so I can start getting ready to go out tonight!

Tchau! J Beijos Florida! Vou te ver no julho!

July 6 Journal

I’m not exactly sure where I left in my last journal, but anything since before then until June 11th, stopped being important on this date. On June 11th, 2010, the World Cup started. Brazil wouldn’t be Brazil without its soccer. The country literally seems to stop for every Brazil game. I had never had much interest in soccer, but I have watched almost every single game. I followed several teams through their games and actually became quite educated in the world of football. I watched the US do better than any Brazilian thought they would do. I saw two normally really good teams (Italy and France) lose quickly. However the Brazilian games were the ones that the whole country stopped to watch.

The first game was against North Korea, a game that everyone thought we would win in a heartbeat. This game I went to watch with that friend of mine that from the building. I mentioned him in my last journal, the guy from the 18th floor, his name is Caetano. He has become my best friend here in Brazil. He is closer to me than anyone in the world. I’ve also become close with his family, and they are such great people. This first game I went up to Caetano’s house to watch Brazil win. To make things interesting, we got together a bet of what the outcome of the game was going to be. I put my 5 Reals down on 2-0 for Brazil… and I almost won! Outside, no cars are on the road, nobody is out walking around. Everybody is gathered in front of a TV somewhere nervously watching the game. The first half, nobody scored anything, then in the second half Brazil made their first goal. A Brazilian goal is something totally indescribable. You’ve never heard anything like it, trust me. When the ball flies into the net, the city screams. You’re able to hear screams from probably everyone in the city. People are constantly blaring horns and just yelling “gooooooooooooooooooooooooal!” Fireworks get shot off. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Not too long after Brazil scored again. Things were looking good for me, until in the last 5 minutes, North Korea scored!?! Brazil was a bit confused at first, but we still ended up winning, so it didn’t matter too much. For the rest of the day the city was basically in party-mode, with everyone super excited about the win and the wins to come.

The next game was one June 20th, and I wasn’t able to watch all of it. I really wasn’t overly upset to be missing the game. The reason I missed half of it was because I had a flight to Rio de Janeiro! This trip ended up being the best trip I have ever made. I went with my best friend, Caetano, who actually lived in Rio for 2 years a while back. We stayed at his grandparent’s house which was located 2 blocks away from Copacabana beach. Rio is the prettiest city I have ever been in for sure. I had such a fantastic time.

My first day in Rio was spent visiting the “Sugar Loaf” or pão de açúcar in Portuguese. It is such a beautiful site. You can see basically the whole city from the top of this mountain thing. You go up by taking two different little car like things hanging from wires. I was completely terrified of them. But all in all, it was BEAUTIFUL. I enjoyed it so much J.

The next day we spent traveling to shopping centers and walking along the beach at Copacabana. There’s actually a Starbucks in one of the shoppings in Rio, called shopping Leblon. Oh my gosh! I was so excited to see Starbucks. I quickly got in line, ordered my “usual” and felt so incredibly happy afterwards! My friend Caetano was so amused at how thrilled I was to have Starbucks that day.

The following day (or maybe two days after, or even the day before, I’m honestly not sure; it’s difficult to remember which day was which) we started the morning off by watching a very emotional US game. I was so thrilled to see the United States win and pass on to the next stage. None of my Brazilian friends could believe that the US made it to the final 8 games. I also managed to watch on Saturday the US lose to Ghana. That was a very emotional game too, and we were SO close! I was honestly a bit disappointed afterwards, but all was good, because Brazil was still in! Oh and I did go to the “FIFA fan fast” on Copacabana beach when I was in Rio to watch the Brazil-Portugal game. It was a bit disappointing, but at least we didn’t lose this game.

There was one night we went to see a play called “A Giaola das Loucas”. It was a play about a bunch of gay men in drag. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that before. I really enjoyed it, but wow, I have NEVER seen so many men in dresses and actually make decent looking girls!! It was a bit strange, but it was really good. It had apparently a lot of very famous Brazilian actors in it, which I thought was quite interesting. Speaking of famous people, we actually encountered one of the most well-known women in Brazil, Xuxa. She’s been on the TV for years, and basically everybody knows her. She was sitting in the row in front of us. Sadly we were without our camera, but at least we got an autograph from her and talked a little with her! When I told my friends back in Recife, nobody believed me at first 😛 but it was true!

One day we spent by visiting the Corcovado. That is one of the most beautiful places I have EVER been. If you don’t know what the Corcovado is, it’s only because you don’t recognize the name. You know the big Christ that is in Rio, the one that is always shown with the city? Yeah, that’s the Corcovado. The view from up there is absolutely beautiful! You can see the entire city from up there. And the Christ statue is so beautiful as well. I’m so happy that I got the chance to go and see it. Oh, and for any Brazilian who wants to say that the Corcovado is bigger than the Statue of Liberty, I researched it, and the Statue of Liberty is significantly bigger. And for those of you who don’t know, the Christ at Corcovado was a present from the French, like our Statue of Liberty was.

Throughout the rest of the trip we just had a great time, walking on the beach, visiting other parts of the city, going to several delicious restaurants and many different shoppings. It was such a great time. It’s a trip I will honestly never forget. On our last day there, we went to the Copacabana fort. I really enjoyed that. The sight from on top of the fort was beautiful, and it was such an interesting thing to go to. My Rio trip was the BEST trip I have EVER been on. Thanks to Rotary for giving me permission to go! I had an amazing time there J.

I came back from Rio on the 27th, and I basically went home and slept most of the day. I was so exhausted. However on the 28th was the next Brazil game. Again I went up to the house of Caetano to watch Brazil kick some butt! The game was Brazil and Chile, and of COURSE Brazil won J. It was a good game to watch. The next day I spent working on my Rotary presentation which I had to present on the 30th. I believe that my presentation went pretty well, I was really nervous about it though.

Now I’ve gotten up to the July 1st, 6 days before I’m supposed to leave. Today as I write this it is actually July 5th, and I’ve got only one day left in Brazil before I leave. I’m a little bit afraid of returning. I think the thing I am most afraid of for when I return is how people are going to react to my English. I’m sure that you while reading this can’t believe this is a 17 year old American writing this. I can’t believe my English is so bad, but I know it is. I’m sure I’ll get it back quickly when I return, but for the moment I’m terrified. I still can’t believe it’s going to happen. In the last week I’ve been going out with friends a LOT. I’ve gone to several good-bye parties, and several days just going out to a bar to drink a soda with some friends. I also went to watch the final Brazil game on the beach here in Recife. It was a lot of fun, but it was honestly incredibly depressing watching Brazil lose to Holland. The following game of Argentina-Germany was an interesting game. I would have sworn it was a Brazil game with the way the city screamed for every Germany goal. There is a really big rivalry between Argentina and Brazil, and everyone here was so happy that they got completely killed by Germany in this game.

So, tomorrow is my last day, and I can’t believe it. Not one bit. I don’t want to leave, but I am honestly excited to be going back. Brazil has become my home. Portuguese has become the language I speak. The people here have become my friends and family. I love this place. There are so many things I miss back in Florida that I am so ready to have again as well though. I’m caught between my two homes, my two nationalities, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m going to miss Brazil. However this year has been perfect. I had ups, I had downs, but overall the year couldn’t have been better. I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’d gladly relive every second over again if I could. I had such a wonderful year, and I will never forget it. Thank you Rotary and to anyone else who has helped me get here. You don’t know how grateful I am to you for that. Thank you thank you thank you thank you! I’ve had an amazing year, and it wouldn’t have been so amazing if it hadn’t had been for you all. Thank you for everything. J

Liz’s Bio

Dobry den! My name is Liz Kane and am currently a junior/senior at Bartram Trail High School in Jacksonville, FL. I am working on graduating a year early to make my exchange a reality. Ever since I started high school, I knew that I loved to travel. Experiencing the world in my eyes is like being the kid in a candy store. I never wanted to read about places from a text book … I just wanted to be there. I guess you could say that this is the exact reason I fell in love with the idea of being a Rotary Youth Exchange student.

So here I am, about to take the greatest step in my life.

Sure, Mom and Dad were slightly hesitant when I brought up the idea… but after lots of hard work on my part (and lots of support on their end) I have finally been given the opportunity to experience another culture first hand.

Do you want to know the most exciting part?? I am spending my senior year in the Czech Republic!!

Besides my resounding happiness, I am quite normal. I have 4 dogs, a cat, a hamster, and an older brother. I enjoy playing soccer, snowboarding, and spending time with my friends. I also have a place in my heart for fashion and art. I love making my own clothes and experimenting with creativity. When I go to college, fashion and international business is what I want to study. Who knows…. Maybe after this experience my life will take a completely different path. I am so blessed to have family and friends who stand behind me in everything that I do. Without them, I would not have the chance to do something this amazing. I also need to thank Rotary for choosing me to participate in Youth Exchange. You have no idea how grateful I really am!

To say the least, I could not be happier.

 Liz’s Journals

August 10 Pre-Departure Journal

This is it. In less than 2 weeks I will be stepping off the plane in Prague and meeting my first host family. It is hard to imagine this sight after thinking about my arrival in the Czech Republic for so long. For the past few months I have been preparing for what is quite possibly the greatest adventure of my life. I went to orientation, attended Rotary meetings, and even tried to study what seems like the most impossible language in the world.

Today I signed up for a skype account and posted the message on Facebook reading “less than 2 weeks until departure, I am so excited.” It is this excitement that led me to put my thoughts into a pre-departure journal for all to read. Right now I feel as if my date is never going to get here. I read about all my other friends who are already abroad in envy that they are already experiencing life in a new way. Then I stop to think… gee Liz, that’s going to be you. Someone will open this page, read your journal, and feel this same envy… only you will be the one in the other country. Time is funny that way. You sit and play the waiting game only for it to sneak up and surprise you in a way you never felt possible.

Take the past 11 months or so. It started with a thought of being an exchange student. This led to an initial waiting of mom and dad’s approval. After I received said approval, it continued on to many late nights of application filling, letter writing, picture perfecting, and yes more waiting. I continued this state of waiting anxiousness up until I received a letter with my interview time and date. I talked at school with other exchangers to be like Jaime and Sarah, who happened to be just as nervous as me about interviewing. So the day came and went…. and I left my interview with a smile, unlike most I talked to. I felt I had made the perfect first impression and I had nothing to fear.

Soon came a random phone call from Daphne about the change I had made in country choices, and a new letter in the mail stating that my sponsor club is the Rotary Club of Mandarin. These little bits of information every so often kept me in the spirit of being an exchange student. This next wait was the worst of all. In the club sponsor letter it had said, “your country assignment will be coming shortly.” With this I gasp and run circles around the kitchen. That also happened to be the reaction when Jody called in the middle of December with “Liz, would you like to know where you are going to spend your exchange?” (well duh!). I could not forget the reaction of the two girls I was babysitting: “What’s a Czech Republic?”

Then came the January orientation, followed by waiting on news from my host district. This news came in bits and pieces throughout the following months including: host club, city, school, and best of all Family. I have not even made it into the Czech Republic yet, and I am in love with my host family. My host brother Ondrej and I have become very close, and even though we will only meet for 3 days (he is going on exchange to Minnesota), I have already made a Czech friend.

Now is the time. I have watched an inbound arrive (Yuri), I am picking up my host brother Laurenz on Thursday, and my last trip to the airport will be all about me. I am still nervous about some aspects of this new life I will become a part of, but I think the excitement has overcome all the bad emotions. I have 2 more Rotary meetings, 13 more days in Florida, and the next year to make my mark on the rest of the world.

Na shledanou!

Liz

August 28 Journal

All I can say is wow. What a roller coaster these first few days have been. There have been ups and downs and all kinds or crazy twists and turns. Where to begin…

On my way to the Czech Republic I had some minor mishaps. My flight from Jacksonville to Detroit went quite smooth, as I coincidently sat right next to my best friend’s dad. The 2 hours or so didn’t seem quite as long with a familiar face to talk to. He asked me all kinds of questions about youth exchange and my new family. All of which I was eager to answer. When we landed in Detroit I said goodbye in the tram that took me to the area of my next gate, to Amsterdam. (This my friends is where the trip starts to go crazy.)

The flight to Amsterdam was set to leave on time, until we were taxing toward the runway… and had to turn around. There was one broken toilet (granted there were 6 on the plane) and we had to go back to the gate to get it fixed. This is another one of those examples from cultural boot camp where any normal being would simply place an out of order sign on the door, but as Americans, we are required to ask maintenance to fix the problem. So, one hour later…. we are off the ground and on our way.

That being said, we landed in Amsterdam at around 6:45. In any normal airport, making a 7:05 flight from this would be do-able. But let me tell you, Amsterdam is no ordinary airport, it is the New York Stock Exchange of Airports. There are people running all over to catch missing flights, there is a mob standing in front of each line of the passport check, and they even have a special area called transfer (big yellow sign) for all the flights they usually move due to crazy delays and their own bad line management. I was in this special area. That’s right everyone… you know when you were late during orientation (which I wasn’t ) and Al or Daphne said “You just missed your flight,” well that was me. Missing my flight to Prague.

Unfortunately, my host family drove two hours from Ceske Budejovice to meet me at the airport, which I did not arrive at until about 6 hours later than expected. They picked me up and we headed home from there. Just me. No luggage, for that was still sitting in Amsterdam. I was pretty excited when I got there, until we got in the car…. about an hour into our journey I had my host dad pull over so I could throw up. This was mostly due to me being so tired from my flights and all the chaos my journey had ensued. Needless to say, I got home and slept all afternoon and all night.

Two days later, my oldest host brother left for his exchange in the United States. I miss him being around because while he was here he was the best translator I could ask for. He showed be around Budweis and where I would be going to school.

Now comes the worst part. I hate to be negative but I think it is only right that I share my feelings with all my journal readers and future RYE students. I have faced the most terrible home sickness that anyone could imagine. My first few days have been rough and there are many contributing factors. My luggage got lost, my host family speaks little English, my wall adapter for all my electronics is broken, I have nobody my age around, school has not started, I feel like I am wasting my time, and I miss my family very much. Two nights ago I even called my mom and said this is it, I have had it, bring me home right now.

I am hoping and praying that this feeling of sadness goes away soon, because I did not expect this at all. But RYE is all about the surprises and running into things that you never thought you would face. So I told my family I will give it a few more days and try to deal with what is in the present. I have turned off the distractions, and am trying a new approach. I am keeping a daily journal to make sure that I am trying hard enough for myself. After all, this whole thing is about me.

On a happier note, I would like to share some observations that I have here in Ceske Budejovice, CZ.

-The weather is currently perfect.

-I can now properly pronounce Ceske Budejovice

-I like watching Harry Potter movies in Czech with English subtitles

-As long as I take bus 2 or 15 I will make it home eventually.

Ahoy!

-Liz

September 11 Journal

I am doing really well here. It was hard at first, but now I could not be happier. Since writing my first journal I have started school here and attended orientation in Strecno, Slovakia. I am slowly but surely adjusting to my new life here in the Czech Republic, and keep falling deeper in love with my new home everyday. So let me share with you some new experiences I have had.

School is very different. I am with the same group of students all day long. Sometimes we move to a different classroom, but for the most part we are in the same seats all day. I have found that there are some tiny cultural differences that will take some time for me to get used to. One of these differences being socks with sandals in school. You are expected to change out of the shoes you came in and put on slippers or sandals. Oh, and did I mention the crocs? I thought I would be able to run away from them, but alas… just as popular in the Czech Republic. I do, however, greatly enjoy that once a class is over and the bell rings everyone pulls out food. My host mom always packs me a sandwich, candy bar, and drink everyday. In school my classes are: Economics, Sociology, History, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Czech, German, and on occasion Physical Education (I say on occasion because it’s only one time a week). I am pretty sure that is it, but if I remember any others I will be sure to add an aside later on.

I think school is taken much more seriously here than in the United States. Everyone has a notebook for each subject and during lessons all they do is copy notes. I however sit in wonderment either staring out the window or asking the rebound in my class what the teacher is talking about. The teachers do not expect much out of me until I get to English class. This is when I get frequent questions on pronunciation or how to say certain phrases. On Fridays, I take optional English with a teacher who is British. This is nicer, because the class is a little harder and me and the other exchange student are asked more things. It was funny though, because halfway through class the teacher said it was time for a break, and we took like 20 minutes off. Me, the other exchange student from New York, and the English teacher walked next door to the pub for a coffee break. It was quite strange, but I thought it was nice at the same time.

Orientation in Slovakia was fun. There are roughly 40 inbounds in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia combined, which is one district. It took us 9 hours by train to get to Strecno from Ceske Budejovice. I was so tired. We ended up getting lost when we arrived in Strecno because it is a very small village. It was fun though because we went to a pizza shop and had Kofola until we received a call with directions from some Rotary people. Kofola, if you do not know, is like the Czech or Slovak version of Coca Cola with much more caffeine. During the time of communism they could not import Coke so they created their own version. It tastes nothing like normal Coke at all. I think it is pretty good, but my host family does not drink it. At orientation, I got to go rafting and see a castle with the other inbounds. I made some new friends, and realized how much language I need to study.

Two days ago, I went to go see the Prague Symphony Orchestra in my city. I went with my Rotary club and the two other exchange students hosted by my club. I will say that this kind of music is not necessary my favorite, but I really enjoyed the concert. I kept telling myself that I don’t have to like everything that I do here, but it’s part of the culture and it’s good to try it all.

I am learning new words and phrases everyday. My host family is very understanding that my language skills are terrible at best. My Rotary here is arranging for the inbounds in my city to take a language course soon, which I am hoping will help me out a little bit.  

In the meantime I will continue to sit in school and pretend like I know what they are talking about. I have learned when they say Americhanka or Anglitsky that they are talking about me, and hopefully soon I will be able to understand them.

I am going tonight to the Cinema with my host family, and tomorrow we are going on a bike ride down by the Vltava river. Chao for now!

September 23 Journal

I have two words for you all: Hladový vokno.

This may lead to the question… What on Earth is Hladový vokno? My friends, Hladový vokno is the Hungry Window. It is one of my favorite places. It is not clear to me what kind of magic is placed on the items that come out of this window… but I know there is something special going on. So if I go down the road of the Rotary 10 or 15 (I do not know the specific average), you can most likely blame it on the Hladový vokno. There are two locations known to me in České Budějovice, and both are fantastic. I always order a Slaninová II. It has bacon, onions, this strange cheese sauce that blows my mind, and maybe a few other things. I did not really read all the things on this sandwich. I think it was just one of the only ones I could figure out how to pronounce without sounding like a foreigner. I have found, however, that people here are very forgiving about my language skills. Even strangers are happy when I try, and the conversation usually will end with “Czech language is one of the hardest to learn, good luck with that,” in some variation of broken English.

Other then the sandwiches I am learning new things everyday. My host family told me how to take the bus to the zoo, so I went with one of my friends (yes, friends) this weekend. It is nothing like the Jacksonville Zoo. I had to find out how to waste 3 hours because that was when the next bus came back to that stop. The most exciting animal there was Medvěd hnědý or for those English speaking folks Grizzly bear. He was a cutie. I also made friends with some Klokan rudokrký (which are baby kangaroos). The day at the zoo was very fun, but the aspect of the trip I was most proud of was traveling to and fro without any problems. It was a good day.

Another thing I would like to share with you all that is cool is that me and the other exchange students are teaching a conversational English class for three weeks while the normal teacher is at home with a family emergency. Under any normal circumstance I would have said no way to teaching English. I have no experience and I feel like people my own age would not want to listen to me gripe and give them assignments. But, since school is not necessarily that exciting, and I really had no choice (the headmaster looked so desperate for our help)… I said yes. I teach English 3 days a week for two class periods. I do not think that teaching English is the best way to absorb Czech, but the kids that we teach are very nice about it. We teach them items such as American holidays and customs and in return we get our own lesson about how the Czechs participate in such things. I think the best lesson we had so far was an hour and a half with about 15 students comparing the United States education system and the educational system in the Czech Republic. It was neat to see how eager they were to learn about the life that we were coming from and how much they wanted to share opinions on the advantages and disadvantages. I have two more weeks of teaching English before I go back to having a normal class schedule.

Other then these things, life seems to be pretty normal for me here. I wake up, eat some food, catch the bus, walk to school, sit in school all day, explore the city, catch the bus home, eat dinner with my host family, do some random family activity (watch TV, or movie), take a shower, go to sleep, and then repeat. I like how comfortable I have become living with my host family, and love how they have adopted me into their family as their new daughter. When I meet new people with my host family, my host mom always introduces me as her daughter. It makes me smile that they think of me as a real part of their family.

Lastly, happy one month to me! YAY! It feels like it has been so much longer…. (I know in a few months I will be saying what the heck… where did all the time go).

Ahoj.

October 2 Journal

AHHHH!!!! I finally visited Praha! It was amazing.

My host family took me last weekend to see some of the touristy things that people usually come to the Czech Republic to see. It was really nice. We also participated in many of the touristy things that people always do in Prague. The funniest part about the whole thing is that I did not feel like a tourist. I felt like I was watching people come to my home and take lots of silly pictures and speak too much English when that is not what we speak here. It was strange how that affected me, but I thought it was really cool at the same time. It was very crowded in Prague when we visited. This was most likely because it was the day that the Pope was in the city visiting the “Baby Jesus of Praha,” which is a centuries old baby Jesus statue in one of the old churches.

The most interesting fact about this is that many people travel to Prague just to see this statue, that is everyone except the Czechs. Not many people here believe in organized religion so the people we saw in the church around the statue visiting were from other parts of Europe and some from South America. Also, the Pope never comes to the Czech Republic. This is his first visit in about 15 years. So that being said, people were crowded around the barriers of the Prague castle waiting to catch a glimpse at the Pope-Mobile….(and yes I was one of them).

The other highlights of the trip included a trip through the Baroque gardens, a trip on a boat down the Vltava to see the sights, walking across the famous Charles bridge, eating lunch off the old town square, and of course finding Starbucks (Al is probably reading this thinking.. how American is that?!?!?!). It was really funny however because I had to explain to my host family that Starbucks to me back in Florida was a very frequent occasion, and there are only two in the entire country here. Starbucks to them is much too expensive, because a coffee at a cafe is only 20 crown (about a dollar). That is why the only Starbucks in Czech Republic are in Prague, because people can afford it here. So when I saw that sign, my face lit up like Christmas. They made mention that we may have to go to Praha more often just so they can see me smile the way I did when we walked into Starbucks. My host brother even managed to tactfully acquire a bag of Starbucks coffee to bring back home (oh how I love my host family).

The next adventure I would like to tell you about has to do with package hunting. My dad sent me a really big package with some Florida shirts, a hoodie, some Halloween goodies to share with the family, and other random items. He wanted to gauge how long it would take so he would know in the future what type of mail would be the most economical in combination with receiving time on my end. This being said, when I checked my email I was able to see where my package was also. Well, once I saw they had tried to deliver it 2 times without leaving any sort of note, I became slightly confused. So being the motivated individual I was, I took the tracking number up to the main post office and managed to find out it was not there. But I did get a phone number and location of my package. This made the hunt go on. I called the number, listened to a murmur of Czech… and then got hung up on. Which meant in my book… ” Liz, good luck ever seeing that package.” Well since I was already looking forward to the Reese’s cups and had already explained how good they were to my host parents, I felt this obligation to find my package so I could share them with my family. I took a bus around the city too a post office that I thought was the one I needed, but was not and then was not able to look for longer that day because I had a Czech lesson in the afternoon.

I felt like the search was never going to end. Until at school the next day, in the English class I’m temporarily teaching, one of the students asked if I wanted him to help me at the post office. So he came with me and helped sort it all out. Long story short(er), I got my package the next day. My one friend who helped me said he was so happy to do so because he thought it would be a nice way to show his appreciation for all the help he has gotten in English. It made me feel really special. This adventure also gave me a great real world opportunity experience to practice my Czech skills. I learned every Czech word having to do with post office and sending and receiving packages. Should be a breeze when I start sending or packages.

Tak (so), I feel like I have written a lot for you all to read for now, but I promise the next journal will be more exciting because my family and I are going to Italy! So until then, na shledanou!

October 12 Journal

I thought the drivers in the Czech Republic were crazy, but they are most certainly not as wild as the ones in Italy. I think that this is a nice way to start what might possibly be a very long description of vacation hilarity and wonderment. As you may have read (or not) in my last journal, my host family took me to Italy for the weekend. This was amazing not only because I got to see Italy but it also gave me an opportunity to get to know my host family even better than before. We planned on leaving the house at 7 am…. so at 8:30 we were on our way. Here’s a cultural aspect for those thinking of visiting or coming here on exchange: the Czechs like being on time, enjoy being on time, but if they are not on time… it’s not the end of the world (You will see this later in the journal on the ride home also).

We made the 7 hour journey to Verona, our first stop in Italy, by way of Austria and Germany. It was so beautiful. The small villages that lined the roadway were picturesque and I felt like I had a postcard taped to the inside of the car window. My host dad also embraced the road trip as a way to give me more of the interesting history tidbits I pick up while living here. We drove through a small city in Germany by the Austrian boarder where my host dad went on a Hitler history tangent, throughout which he was very reassuring that he was by no means a supporter of his regime. They just love history. As the car ride wore on, I continued to sleep. It’s the easiest and fastest way to make it safely to your destination. At one point during my slumber I got a very gentle poke on the leg, “wake up, we are almost in Italy.” At this I was so excited, mostly because Italy is somewhere I have always wanted to visit, It was even very high up on my list of countries I wanted to go to on exchange.

When we finally arrived in Verona and it took us a solid 30 minutes to find the hotel, which was not bad at all. The streets are a confusing labyrinth of don’t turn this way and I don’t think so if your vehicle is bigger than a Vespa. When we reached the hotel, we discovered they had a guest parking area, to which my host family was most certainly relieved. We took an hour to unpack and refresh before going out to explore the city. My host family has been to Verona 5 or 6 times before, so they know what places are nice to see. If you are reading this thinking…”why does Verona sounds so familiar?,” it is because it has been way too long since you have thought about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This is the setting for the play. Even though the play is fiction, there is a family Capulet and they did live in Verona. Anyway, enough about Shakespeare. The town is so pretty. The ruins of the Roman empire are all around, and you feel as if you have stepped into a time machine while walking the streets. There were multiple occasions when I had to stop and pinch myself because I really did think that I was dreaming. We visited the Julieta house, the Verona Castle, the Roman theatre, and ate dinner in the town square (and yes I did have pizza).

I had to laugh at how small the espresso was. I think that is what keeps people going in Italy late at night. During the day there are less people, then all of a sudden…. bam! Let’s eat dinner for 3 hours. It’s culture and even with this I found myself thinking and relating more with the Czech lifestyle. I had conversations in Czech with my host family about different things. They explained to me one of the benefits of speaking Czech is that not a lot of people can. If you say something bad in English about food or the hotel you are in, then more people are likely to understand you. But if you say it in Czech, nobody around you knows what you are talking about. I love this! I feel like the new language I am learning is a secret one. My host family and I agree that Czech is one of the best languages to speak while traveling.

The second stop on our Italy trip was Milano. I was in awe with the dramatic change from small romantic Verona, to fashionably large Milan. We spent 3 hours in Milano just driving around (yes, looking for the hotel). I felt like there was this connection to one of the National Lampoon movies instead of “hey look kids there’s Big Ben… hey look kids there’s Big Ben again…,” it was “hey look Liz there’s the Duomo… hey look Liz there’s the Duomo again.” I like the Duomo. The gothic style just draws me in. It is amazing how something this spectacular has lasted so long. Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that the Duomo in Milan is the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world? Well, if you didn’t, now you do. We also visited the Santa Maria delle Grazie, that housed Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” until they moved it to the museum next door. I did not get the opportunity to see the painting itself, because it is necessary to make reservations at least 3 weeks in advance. I did however see my fair share of churches and monasteries while in Milan. I would name them all, but there were way too many! I also enjoyed going through the fashion district. I could not afford anything by Gucci, Prada, Valentino, or Armani but it was sure nice to look.

After a nice night’s rest, I packed my bag and was ready to hit the road for an exciting ride home. My host parents thought it would be nice to drive up to Lake Como in Northern Italy and then go back the Czech Republic by driving through the Alps. Just think… (it took 7 hours to get here by highway), when we left “ake Como at around 2 pm I was ready for a nice mountain ride. At around 8 pm, we were still in Italy. We stop at a light on the road where they were doing construction work. My host dad turns around and asks “So Liz, you like adventure right?” Of course I say yes. Because that was what we were on, the adventure of following the mountain road. We had a road map of Europe and my host mom turns and points…”tade” she says. I’m going to be completely honest, we were nowhere near where we needed or even wanted to be. That being said… when we found the one sign that said Autostrada, we followed it. It took us 100 km to even reach the highway. And when we did, we were probably 2 hours away from where we had started. It sure was an adventure, and I loved ever second of it. I learned more about how my host parents function and can now recognize many Czech words having to do with travel. I also found that my host parents sort of function like the Jetsons. Do you remember that cartoon? We would stop at a rest area to use the restroom and fill the auto with gas and my host mom would stick out her hand for the money to go inside and get some food. It was adorable. It reminded me of the Jetsons how George Jetson would work and make the money only to have Jane spend it all. That was all I could think of. Our trip continued into the wee hours of the morning as I slept. We arrived back at the house at 4 am. That’s right… 7 hours to get there 14 to get back. I love it.

So today is a day of resting and fasting. The resting is because of the long trip, the fasting is because I ate way too much while I was in Italy. I was gone for 2 and a half days. In that time I ate 3 pizzas, a calzone, 2 plates of pasta, continental breakfast at the hotel on both mornings, gelato, tiramisu, and I’m sure much more that I can’t think of. Needless to say, I do not need to be doing any more eating today. If I do, it should only be fruit, yogurt, and water. Until next time….

Čau.

P.S. This has nothing to do with my trip to Italy. But I thought I would let the members of the Mandarin Rotary Club know how openly my host club has accepted Fluffy as a member of the club. They are fascinated with him. He even has his own chair at the end of the table. I cannot explain how or why, but Fluffy is a hit! More info and pictures coming soon!

October 20 Journal

Ahoj! It is very heavily debated as to which languages are the most difficult to learn and I do not think there will ever be a definitive list without one language fighting to be known as more difficult. So short of Chinese I would like to put in my vote for Czech being the 2nd hardest language. Nobody thinks of it being a hard language because they never think of the Czech Republic. If they do, it is probably assumed they do not have their own language. It is only spoken by about 12 million people worldwide, 11 of which live in the country. So, it is a rare occurrence abroad to find someone else who speaks Czech unless you are in the country itself. I think that is the best part, because once I have learning the language under my belt I can have side conversations in Czech so nobody understands (except the person who I find to speak with in Czech). Alright, so this means it is time for a brief Czech language lesson.

-The way it is spelled is the way it is pronounced. Very simple if you can actually get your mouth to make the sound of whatever letter you want to say. This goes well for me until I get to the letter Ř. It does not matter how you slice it, this letter is my least favorite letter in the alphabet… and surprise it only exists in Czech! Apparently it is to sound like: “rž” or like ‘rg’ in bourgois. It is so awkward. My classmates love trying to get me to say words that have that letter (which seems like all of them). Příští zastávka means bus stop, and I can’t even say the first part. It sounds like I tried to vomit way too many sounds at once.

-The accents are nice and not so nice at the same time. It helps with recognizing the sounds, but then when I try to type something on my English computer keyboard it takes me 20 minutes to write a Czech sentence. I bookmarked a Czech Alphabet link on my computer so I can copy and paste the letters. It works for now.

-The Czech language itself can be traced back to the 11th century. Pretty impressive if I do say so. It’s a synthetic language, which means a lot of word changing, but not as much word adding. It is perfectly okay to make a one word sentence. I will give an example: you go – jdeš or you will go – půjdeš. Another fun but bummer is that j is y, y exists but sounds like I or ee, and I is still alive too, and sounds just like I or ee also. So in the end, the only letter that got his sound stolen was J. Jan is a very common name here, but it pronounced like Yan or Honza. Or, if Jan is introduced to me he says you can just call me John (with hard J sounds). What?? you just say your name was Honza. Come on people. This whole concept throws me off.

-I am a fan of names here. Some of my friends are: Alžběta (bětka), Magdalena (Magda), Petra, Veronika, Kateřina (Katka), Ondřej (Pozzy), Flantišek and Eduard (Eda). I will use Eda as an example. When I talk about Eda to someone else it’s Eda. If I am calling him from across the room or trying to get his attention I say Edo. It works the same with everyone else. This leads to a constant situational ending letter change that makes my head hurt sometimes. The system of conjugation is really complex.

-My current favorite way to learn new Czech words is to go on walks with my Czech friends and have them point things out in the environment and tell me the Czech word. Then, about 2 hours later they will ask me what the words are. It’s a fun way to get to know the people and the language at the same time.

So that’s a good overview language for the moment. When I start drowning in grammar I might bore you all again with another language lesson. I have lessons 2 days a week with a teacher who has taught exchange students in the past. They are going well. Also, is it possible to decline in your native language? It often takes me a very long time to think of words that were once so easy to come by. Just a thought.

Until next time (soon I am sure, I like writing too much!). Čau.

November 1 Journal

I wish I could freeze time. I know that a little over two months is barely a dent in my exchange experience, but I already know that it is going to be over before I know it. It is November… last year at this time I was awaiting my interview and acceptance into the RYE family. Now, I am living my dream. What was once a thought, turned into an action, led me to being in this very seat, on this computer, writing my journal for everyone to read (well I like to think there are a lot of you).

Time is fascinating. Moments come and go. Feelings range from happy to sad, people that were once a very integral part of your life slowly disappear into the shadow that time has created. But the best part is that all that once was gets replaced with something new. The actions seem more kinetic, the people seem more relatable, the world is literally at your fingertips. I wish I could really put into a properly stated sentence how much I love all of these feelings. I am learning how to react on my own, there is no need to look behind me, for the future is what I make it. The Czech Republic is peculiar. Not in a bad way, but just… well peculiar. If I asked anyone back home something about this place they may say Prague, or that’s where you are on exchange. They would not be able to tell you that the people I have shared my time with so far in this place are amazing. They may seem to be quiet or shy at first, just like myself. But when the candle is lit, you can feel the warmth of the souls around you.

Since my last entry I have cooked an entire meal for my host family (which they called “American Day”), and I have shared and experienced Halloween. On “American day” I made pancakes, mac and cheese, hot dogs, cornbread, bbq pork, and brownies. Even though I do not think myself a distinguished cook, they seemed to think that I was the best one ever. The great feeling that I got out of that day, however, had nothing to do with food. It is the realization that there really are more cultural differences than you notice. When I sat down with my host family and they asked me what they were eating it was strange, because all of these foods seem so normal to me. It is like when we have brambory at almost every meal. I mean, I like potatoes, but I did not know I had to be prepared to love them.

Halloween was a very family oriented day. They treated it like an “All Souls day” where we went to 3 different towns and villages to visit the graves of deceased relatives. We lit candles at each gravesite and signed small crosses over the graves. All of the graves had been previously adorned with a multitude of flowers, still some families brought more. It was strange to see some of these graves, because many of the people who had died were war victims or soldiers. Which always leads me back to the line “If we could make every high school student in the world an exchange student, there would be no more war.” I feel that this is true. I have been accepted into a family and new life that I have created for myself. I feel like everyone who thinks of the United States that I come into contact with will think of me. Just as I have done in the past with other exchange students. It’s a great feeling knowing that you can change the world with small actions.

If you were wondering (I bet not), I am still not fluent in Czech. I fear I will not be for quite some time. But, all I can do is keep working on my language skills and they will come. I often get frustrated because I want to know what people are saying when they speak fast or slow! In school I want to learn everything that my class is doing. I want to be able to think and feel just as they all do. I want to be able to close my eyes and read the back of my eyelids in some sort of gibberish that only a small percentage of the world may understand. I want that to be me.

Lastly, I want to applaud all of the future exchange students out there. I have no idea how many of you read or even follow my journal, but I do not think any of you are fully aware of what a truly great experience this is. I wish I could tell you everything I knew about youth exchange, the emotions, the friendships, and the sense of self that you gain slowly over this year. But honestly, I would be lying if I told you anything. Because it is different for all of us, but we are all learning to become ourselves.

November 18 Journal

“What you think you create, What you feel you attract, What you Imagine you become.”- Adele Basheer

This quote is on the front of the journal my best friend gave me as a going away present. I did not think I was going to have to use it this soon. I have already filled up my first journal with pages and pages of stories and notes. When I grabbed this journal off my shelf, it was honestly the first time I had thought about the quote on the cover. I wonder how long it took Halie to find this journal in the bookstore… because this quote is so relevant to how I am feeling now. It symbolizes all the change that is happening and will happen in the months to come. My brain is always on the move. I don’t crave the old things that I once loved and could not be without. I do not miss the old life I had, as I did when I first arrived in this country. I have been here for about three months. I am at a level of happiness with people and surroundings that I once wanted to castrate (yes, I said castrate). Now, a blink feels like a wasted moment, until I realize my eyes are actually opening into a big adventure. When my mouth opens, my brain automatically responds with this gibberish that has become so warming. I almost fail to recognize myself, but I know this is only the start of a new me. I am becoming me.

I have seen new sights and sounds in addition to knowing my own home like the back of my hand (yes, I call my town home now). In the past feel weeks I have been to Prague (again :D) to see the musical Carmen, Jindřichův Hradec for an inbound weekend, and Bad Schallerbach in Austria. In Austria I went to Aquapulco, which is this amazingly fun indoor water park. Good news was that the sun was shining… so like any good Floridian exchange student that has been deprived of mass amounts of sunshine, I spent 2 hours of my stay in Aquapulco sunbathing. My body was very happy.

The only thing that is going downhill is the lack of warmth and sunshine. I had to go out and buy an even warmer jacket, because the walk to the bus stop every morning keeps getting colder and colder. Also, no wonder I am sure when January rolls around I will be frozen into an icicle. Generally, I find nothing else to complain about other than weather. If anything else, it is probably only how I have to wake up, go to school everyday, sit while they learn and look vacantly out the window at hopes that something a little more interesting will happen. NOOO WAIT!! What I meant to say was… I love going to school. We learn the most interesting things. I understand fully and comprehend all things that go on through the day and it brings me to tears the moment class is over for the day. * I really miss Sarcasm… it does not exist in this country.*

Other than this… I am not losing anything except the English language. I make the stupidest vocabulary errors, and I can’t even think about grammar. My friends in school will ask me questions about things that are so particular that I have no idea what to tell them. I almost always refer them to the other American exchange student and admit to myself that I have been defeated by the lack of English stimulation. I have just let that go though. I think it is such a fun experience to be so consumed in the new life you have created that you forget basic things. Today I mixed up the words savage and salvage. I have no clue what context it was in… but I was oh so wrong. I find the best solution to anything you do wrong: Laugh. It really is the best medicine.

So that’s about it. I am at a loss… I have found so much normality in my life that everything I could write would sound so mundane. You don’t want to hear about how happy I am riding the bus when I would have rather drowned than ride the bus in America. Or, how I clean my room and do my own laundry. Heck, I even offer to wash the dishes. Al, when this gets posted make sure you have EMS on stand-by… I don’t think my parents can read this sort of information without having heart attacks. 🙂

Zatím na shledanou.

November 29 Journal

Wait… what is it… did you say that there is a Christmas Tree in the Square?!?!?!? Does that mean it’s the official start of mass chaotic shopping and eating way too much food?!?!? Not only that, but it means that I am over 3 months into my exchange (holy $#!%), time really is going way too fast.

Until I start blabbering on about holiday traditions here and so on, I should tell you about my experience with Thanksgiving in a foreign country. Everyone was extremely interested in this American holiday. In fact, I happened to eat three separate Thanksgiving type meals! That’s more than at home, but I suppose in Florida it is made up for with days of turkey related leftovers. I had a meal with the Rotex at our inbound weekend, I had one with some friends from school, and another with my host family. Overall, I am very pleased with how well it went. I made some monkey bread for my friends and family and helped my babička (Czech for Grandma) with the turkey.

I love my babička. The only words she knows in English are “yes, no, and cabbage,” which in my opinion, is perfect. I wish that those were the only things people could say to me in English. Every time I go to visit her for lunch or baking cakes, I leave her flat with the biggest smile. She forces me to use my language skills and it makes me feel so good to finally understand almost everything that she says. While we were eating our “Thanksgiving” we were talking about dance lessons. She asked my host dad to help translate so I would understand. Here’s the best part: before he said anything to me in English, I translated it to him. He looked at my babička and then back at me and said “See, you don’t need me to tell you anymore, you understand fine.”(This is when you imagine that moment of running into the bathroom, locking the door and doing the happy dance while screaming in excitement.) It was one of the best moments I have ever had. All of the little moments like this one make me grow even closer to the family that Rotary has given me in the Czech Republic. I cannot imagine how I am going to leave them in January, but I know my next family will take care of me too J.

Now, it is time for the scoop on Czech holiday shenanigans. It’s true, Christmas is coming way sooner than I expected. This realization did not come until I had my babička strapped to my arm, while sipping punč and waiting for the city’s tree to be colorfully lit for the start of the Christmas season. The temperature was way too cold (5 degrees Celsius with a steady breeze is enough to make me want to hibernate for the winter). I stood next to my family in the square and listened to some Czech carols sung by a children’s choir. I looked all around the square… an ice skating rink had appeared, as well as a plethora of lights and decorations. It’s beginning to look and feel very much like Christmas. There are a few things that I am going to have to get used to. For example: Did you know that here presents will be delivered by Baby Jesus (in Czech Ježíšek ) ? Or, on the 5th of December we have Mikuláše (St. Nicholas day) when St. Nicholas comes to visit the children of the Czech Republic with an angel and devil by his side. The good children (if they promise to be good) receive a small gift or some candy while the naughty ones get coal or (typical) a potato. This all tends to be very confusing to me because 60% of this country is non-religious.

So when the tree was lit and my host brother said, “Advent. do you have in U.S.?” I looked and said yes, but then thought to myself they celebrate Advent? The answer is yes indeed. Advent is one of the most important seasons here. They do it just like textbook Catholics. They light the candles on the table (one for each week), small children keep Advent calendars, and they set out Nativity scenes. But, I was assured that even the people who aren’t religious can celebrate Advent. They just use it as the 4 weeks before Christmas to anticipate opening presents, which sounds legit to me. Personally, I am going to use Advent to get a better understanding of holiday traditions, which means saying yes to anything having to do with holiday things that are typically Czech. I have already promised babička one of my Saturday’s to bake cakes and candies and I am oh so excited to beat down Christmas dinner (I’ll explain in a future journal).

For now, I’m trying to stay busy and not let the holiday season be a low point. Everyone always says it’s one of the hardest parts of exchange and the homesickness will most likely be unbearable. Me, I am going to smile and embrace everything new and different for the next few weeks. I never know if I will get an opportunity like this ever again, so I am going to make the best of every moment no matter how embarrassing, disgusting, or strange I may find it to be. Tak čau.

December 9 Journal

This is called Půjdem spolu do Betléma (Let’s go to Bethlehem together):

Pů-jdem spo-lu do Be-tlé-ma duj- daj, duj- daj, duj- daj, dá! Je-žíš-ku, pa-náč-ku, já tě bu-du ko-lí-bat.

Zač-ni, Ku-bo, na ty du-dy: duj- daj, duj- daj, duj- daj, dá! Je-žíš-ku, pa-náč-ku, já tě bu-du ko-lí-bat.

A ty, Jan-ku, na píšť-alku: dud-li, tud-li, dud-li, dá! Je-žíš-ku, pa-náč-ku, já tě bu-du ko-lí-bat.

A ty, Mik-ši, na hous-ličky: hud-li, tyd-li, hud-li, dá! Je-žíš-ku, pa-náč-ku, já tě bu-du ko-lí-bat.

A ty, Váv-ro, na tu basu: rum-rum, rum-rum, ruma, dá! Je-žíš-ku, pa-náč-ku, já tě bu-du ko-lí-bat.

I am still learning it, but it is by far my favorite Czech carol…

Roughly translated: It is a story of going to Bethlehem to meet the Baby Jesus. It is calling on different people to play music for him. The first is Jim who plays the pipe, the second is Jack who plays the flute, the third is Mickey who plays a small violin, and lastly Lawrence who plays the bass. The sound in the middle of each verse represents the sound of the instrument being played (pretty creative, huh?). I just like it because it’s fun to sing… and watching my host mom and brother sing it on Mikuláš when the Czech Devil showed up at my host grandma’s flat was priceless.

Speaking of.. I think this is the coolest holiday ever. Mikuláš is epic. The square had thousands of people gathered to watch the small angel rappel from the Black Tower to the other side of the square. Then, after that was over, there was a huge angel who was paraded around the whole square. Then most people go out to the pubs or go to their home to wait for Mikuláš or čert (the devil) to show up at their house. Unfortunately for me, I was a terrible person this year… which meant my house was visited by the devil. So without any interruptions, screaming and chaos entered my host grandma’s flat and I got a pitchfork stuck in my face. I was prodded until I started singing a song (I chose Jingle bells because it was the first thing I could think of), and then the devil was pleased. Since I did not fail his test, he left me alone.

My host brother on the other hand was not so lucky…. when asked to sing he just sat there. Violence ensued and like any other child who gets visited by the devil, he was dragged to hell (in this case meaning across the living room with fierce resistance). I, of course, like any big sister would do in the situation….started laughing and pointing and taking lots of pictures. Did I mention how much I love this? My host grandma must have a way with holiday figures though because Mikuláš did us the honor of stopping by grandma’s with presents earlier in the day. Isn’t he sweet?!?! (Okay more like host dad and mom went shopping so Liz would eat her own weight in chocolate and gain all the weight she’s been trying to avoid since she stepped foot in this country.)

Since it is winter now and there is only really cold weather and rain, which in my opinion is much worse than snow. My host family told me that the weather this year is quite odd. It snowed for two days in October and now when people are looking for a white Christmas, their hope is dwindling. I am looking forward to everything that’s happening in the future (snow or not). My host family is taking me to the Christmas market in Vienna and we are also going to the Alps in Austria for a ski trip over winter holiday. So, whether or not there is snow in Czech does not matter, because I am still going to have a great time. Now, I am enjoying the winter nights with my friends ice skating on the square. It is not so expensive and it gives me a chance to do something that I don’t normally do in Florida (which is ice skate). My second host dad even invited me to play ice hockey with them if I want. I’m not so sure about that one….

I hope that everyone has a fantastic vánoční svátky (Christmas holiday)!

And because Sarah May did it in her journal, I must add a Rotary Blazer picture…. and those of you who know my creative persona will understand exactly how my blazer came to be this chaotic before I even hit 4 months.

 December 24 Journal

This, my friends, is the heart wrenching tale of my long lost friend. His name was Emil. And this is his story….

It was early, on that cold December morning, the 23rd I suppose. Emil was canoodling with the others waiting to be picked up by his new, loving family. His friends were coming and going as he stood quietly amongst the wake. Finally, the hand reached in from above, and plucked him from his slumber. He was confused, alone, and very scared. Once he arrived in his new home, a mere 10 minutes later, he was welcomed by a plethora of water and new smiling faces. It didn’t take long for Emil to make new friends and refresh after his journey. Of course, you know how outgoing those Rotary exchange students are ;). Emil and I were instant friends. We took pictures together and discussed our holiday plans. Little did he know, my family had something else in mind. A plan, in which, he became the victim. My poor, poor friend Emil…..

As the story continues, Emil and I parted ways, but only for an hour or two. I even received word that he was still doing just fine, and I needn’t worry about him at all. As it turns out, I was duped. When I went to visit Emil in the evening I was greeted with what looked like a vicious crime. I was assured, however, that this was not what it looked like. Emil was in no harm at all, especially in the comfort of what appeared to be a plastic bag. I held him as we rode in the car on our way to some sort of rendezvous. As I exited the vehicle, I held on to Emil with all my strength. I handed him over at the door to a man who appeared to be a caretaker. He was wearing an apron and I was greeted with a smile. (If you have a weak stomach please skip the next paragraph).

To my dismay, my young friend was taken from me under false pretenses. It wasn’t until I heard the muffled banging sounds that I became worried about Emil and his safety. Shockingly enough, by the time that I had thought to go check on him… It was too late. The man who greeted me previously had filleted my new friend. Emil was handed back to me in pieces, and I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t help but think… this is not the happy ending I thought our friendship would have. As I took him home, in what was now a cooking pot, that I had started referring to as an Urn, I questioned the morals of my family.

But oh was he tasty!!! And I can’t help thinking that Carp on Christmas is the coolest tradition in the world.

What you have just read is indeed, quite true. It is what I have found to be one of the most interesting holiday traditions here in the Czech Republic. At first the idea seemed rather barbaric, but after being a part of the whole process and experiencing it for myself, I couldn’t help but smile at the differences. If you think about it, it can be compared to how most Americans always have turkey on Thanksgiving. Only here, you get to live with you dinner before you eat it.

I am going to try and keep this journal short because that story said it all. I just wanted to thank Rotary and my family again for letting me experience this. You have no idea what it means to me. So to everyone in the United States, Czech Republic, and all my other exchange friends in the world have a Hezký vánoce a štastný nový rok!! I love you all!

January 10 Journal

One day Lift ticket for Sternstein: € 22,00

Wiener Schnitzel mit pommes: € 9,50

Car ride back to Czech Republic: 64.4 km + gas

Visit to Hospital after said day in Sternstein: Nothing except the pain in my wrist and an excruciatingly long wait for various doctors to look at my x-rays because my host mom is a doctor so she has taken extra care to make sure her baby isn’t dying and hasn’t broken anything.

Finding out that my wrist isn’t broken and I can still enjoy my week long Snowboard trip to the Alps in Austria: PRICELESS!!!!

Thankfully, it was only a sprain. Regardless, it was still (and still is) painful, but I was so excited when they told me I could still snowboard with my new nifty wrist brace. Two thumbs up if you ask me. Basically… the story is, we went to the Czech/Austrian Boarder (on the Austrian side) so I could try out snowboarding before our week in the Alps. Because I am a goober, I fell and put all my weight on my arm. Then, of course, it hurt really bad. We got back home, and I asked my host mom to look at it. She told me it wasn’t broken (to which I didn’t believe her) and wrapped it up. I think I slept for a total of two hours that night and woke up still with gross amounts of pain in my wrist. Host dad calls host mom, who then arranges for x-rays and to have every doctor in the region examine my results. Turns out there’s a small crack in one bone in my arm not big enough to cast and some torn innards. No big deal says the 5 doctors who examined it and all tried to overanalyze it because I was the doctor’s daughter. They arranged for me to get this sweet brace for my wrist that allows me to feel like I’m Iron Woman. I can do virtually anything with this thing on and not cause any more damage to my wrist! This meant that I could still enjoy my vacation!

Speaking of vacations… I WAS IN THE ALPS!!!! THE ALPS! THE ALPS! THE ALPS! THE ALPS! (Okay sorry). It was amazing to say the least. When you live in Florida and the most you get is a freeze warning that declares a state of emergency by the Governor due to the citrus crop (thank you CNN on Austrian television that I don’t get in CR) you tend to get very excited when you see things this magnificent. The air was cool, the snow was….. well, snowy and the food, holy cow! Forget hungry window causing my weight gain, what I really meant to say was “I gained all this weight on my one week trip to Austria.” The ski/snowboard philosophy here from what I have experienced is much different. In the United States, when I go snowboarding, it’s an all day event. I start at 9 am and finish as soon as the lifts close with a small break for some sort of food. This food is shoveled down so fast that I don’t even have time to socialize and it’s back to the slope. In Austria… the story is so different. We start around the same time, perhaps a little later but, we stop for lunch. I mean STOP. About an hour later we get back on the slope (around 2 or so) and take a few more runs. Then around 3:30 (slopes close at 4:30) we stop for coffee, tea, or for the hardcore people some sort of Austrian bar concoction. Then we slowly make our way all the way back down the mountain to the lodge or the car. This is followed by a short break at our mountain flat which leads into more eating for dinner. After dinner I played Carcassone with my family and then stayed up to watch CNN, because I was so excited that there was a channel in English. My TV at home here only has Czech channels. It’s cool for learning, but when you are looking to inform yourself on the latest stories of the world, it’s nice to see the news. Downside: when there is very limited newsworthy coverage, you see the same headlines over and over (Thank you, CNN). Besides all the food and multiple bruises from falling so much, I had the best week ever! We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast type place run by Brun Hilda. No, I’m serious… That’s really her name. She made me breakfast every morning complete with eggs that had hats. They were the cutest thing ever and I regret not taking any pictures of them. She only talked to me in German, which was an experience… because I had no idea what she was saying. But, I put on that “Rotary Smile” said Guten Morgan, Auf Wiedersehen and good. For one week, I’m pretty pleased with my German language knowledge.

The way home was bittersweet. I knew that the best week I ever had with my host family was ending. Packing up all my belongings, I made my way to my next host family. It’s one of the best/worst moments in Youth Exchange that I have experienced thus far. I have become so attached to my 1st host family that when I was getting ready to leave they were trying to find excuses for me to stay. For example: “I think there is too much snow on the street to drive the car,” “I think it will be better if you have more time to pack,” “So… maybe you should move next week or the week after.” All of these made me realize just how lucky I was to have the time that I did with this family. I know that they will forever be a part of my life and I am so grateful to have been a part of theirs.

Moving is all part of the experience and as much as I am going to miss my last host family, I am going to move forward and give my current family the best of my time. I want everyone in my new life here to be able to share the same kind of relationship that I have conceived with my first host family. Step back world. I have a new family for 2 ½ months. It may only be the first day, but I promise to make this time of my exchange even better than the last.

January 22 Journal

Ahoj World.

Let’s see, what can I tell you that’s new? Well, you already know that I changed host families. You already know I’m gaining lots of weight. But, perhaps I can find something new to talk about. How about this: I started dance lessons! Not ballet or jazz, but traditional ballroom dancing. Many families send their children to dance lessons between the ages of 15 to 19 so they’re children can become “more refined” and “more cultured”. Since doing new things is one of those awesome little traits of being an exchange student, my host grandma, whom I love so much, seized the opportunity to buy me dance lessons as one of my Christmas presents. Lucky for me, the lessons are taught only in Czech.

This leads to the very interesting side topic of last Monday (about a week or so ago). Oh last Monday, how you made me very confused. The first week I moved into my new family, it was only my host parents because my brother was on a ski trip with his class in France. Seeing as my host parents do not speak very much English, this led to mass Czech language learning on my part because without that my answers would have been quite repetitive of yes’s, I understand’s, no, I’m not hungry, I really am hungry, and I’m going to sleep. I say this simply because those are usually my most important phrases of the day. But, since I was thwarted into this new environment, there is no time like the present to start studying much more than I was before.

Ok, so back to Monday. I had gone to school like any other normal Monday and was home around 2:30. I decided that I would have a snack and just relax before my dance lessons. This led to talking to my host mom briefly, watching some TV, eating a small dinner, and then taking a shower and getting ready to go. I was at my dance lesson from 5:30 to 8. I returned to the house, with my feet sore as could be, talked to my host parents, did not pass go and did not collect 200 dollars. I was so tired. So naturally, I went to bed early (wow, that never happens). Turns out by the time I wake up for school at 6:45 am, I was in so much mass confusion that I had to sit there and regroup for a few minutes. And why is this? Because I had my first 100% totally complete dream in Czech. I have had ones before that had only some phrases that were random and some words that I had used on repeat for any particular day. But never have I woken up and my first thought been “What the HE*L did I just dream about.” because to be honest, I really have no idea what my first dream in Czech was about. I think I was so surprised when I woke up that I completely forgot. I went to eat breakfast and was, well, wow. It was awesome. But at the same time, I am looking forward to the point where I can dream in Czech and be able to completely understand it.

Hmm. so after that interesting life story, I do not have much else to follow it with. Last night I stayed up way too late (meaning early morning) making food and dancing around my kitchen with my host brother. We made some noodles, played really loud music and shared in general hilarity. I think maybe one of my favorites was fighting over which CD’s to play. The creative strategy of “well, we should listen to my music, I’m being a good host sister and sharing my culture with you.” And about 10 minutes later it would be “Well, Liz, now that I know I don’t like that CD, I’m going to put in my music.” This is A.K.A “sharing our cultures”. I, in fact, always tend to lose at this. I don’t mind though. Czech music is usually pretty good, and my host brother also has an extensive collection of older English CD’s that I am also a fan of like The Beatles. My two favorite Czech bands here are Vpsaná fixa and Mandrage. Good stuff.

In the past week I’ve also attended the Rotary Ples for Cesky Krumlov with the exchange students there. It was a lot of fun. I think I met more people interested in me being an exchange student than I ever have in one sitting. I met Rotarians from Denmark, Austria, Turkey, Slovakia, and, of course, Czech Republic. Maybe, by the time Ples (fancy ball) season is over (now until late March) I will be an amazing dancer. I sure hope so.

Alright, well I’ve managed to spend enough time avoiding to walk to the bus stop to get to Czech lessons on time. so I should probably leave now. I’ll write more later, promise J.

February 2 Journal

Does anyone recall that line in the Outbound student handbook in bold print where it says “Be Prepared to Adapt”? For the most part, this really has not been too challenging for me. Making friends wasn’t so hard, and the most complicated barrier in even the hardest of times has been my language skills. And I am by no means complaining in any way, shape, or form. I am just letting you all know what I am experiencing now is a little bit more challenging than what I have faced so far.

Do you recall in my last journal or 2 mentioning that I moved? Well, at first I was just out of place mentally because I am so close with my first host family. I give them a lot of credit and without them, I probably would have been on my way back to Florida much earlier than anyone would have liked. But now, I have been living in my new home for exactly 23 days. This has been the hardest part of my exchange. Adaptation is a skill that I thought was easy.. No sir. Not at all. I literally changed lifestyles overnight. The Kubešovi family is my new family. My host mom is Marie, who I call Marie. Host dad is Honza, who I call Honza. My host brother. well he’s also Honza because 1 out of every 6 males in Czech Republic are named that. And yeah, I call him Honza too. I also have a host sister, Jana, who studies in Germany and another older host sister Maruška who lives down the street with her husband and daughter, Marketa (age 2). I have my own room upstairs, and it’s quiet and peaceful.

On Sunday nights after dinner, I sit down with my host family and I write out my schedule for the week. This is so the whole family knows what each other is doing. All my plans are thoroughly checked prior to engagement. My host mom has a copy of my school classes so she knows what time I will be home from school every day. I have dance lessons on Monday, Rotary meetings on Wednesday, and every other day of the week I normally have nothing exciting planned. In my new home, much more is expected of me. If I have no plans after school, I am home within 30 minutes of my school being finished for the day. If I do have plans, I am home at whatever time they agreed to. When I come home, I am to say “Ahoj,” so they know that I am there before I go up to my room. And. cool for me. best part.. Ready… Set.. No more English!! The only time something gets close to English is if I am so lost in understanding something that they will help me out. Other than that, plans are discussed and made in Czech, dinner conversations are in Czech, and misunderstandings are dealt with in Czech.. which for me means I am usually on the short end of the stick.

If you were wondering why it hasn’t really sounded like I’ve had any issues so far with everything it’s because I haven’t mentioned having problems. The only problem I have had is that it is taking me much longer than I had hoped to adjust to my new life in my new house. Every day I am learning something new about my host family and how they function. Examples: How plans need to be made a week in advance, flattening out clothes before folding is essential, you take-you clean up, even if we offer- you can get it yourself, mom is always right, I don’t eat soup with my left hand so why did you put the spoon on the left, umiš český, we discussed it 5 days ago in Czech.. why can’t you remember?, and we made plans and you’re going. None of these things are problems. They are all things that I have to adjust to. One of the experiences of being an exchange student is having the chance to move and experience a new family life. I just happened to move extremes from fluid to strict. Hence: I am the one who has to adapt. A word to others who may one day be in my shoes: don’t be shocked if you switch families and you think that your life is going to end. It won’t end. It will just take some more time to get used to everything that they do differently. My host family now has hosted multiple exchange students before from Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Ecuador. I am their first American. I really don’t want to ruin their vision of America by being unreasonable. So as difficult as I have a feeling these next 2 months are going to be.. I will overcome it. Because I am an exchange student, and exchange students can do anything they put their minds to. (Yes, I am still wearing my Rotary Smile).

I also want to share with you the awesome time I had at Pec Pod Sněžkou at my inbound weekend for Czech Republic. It took 6 hours of cross country travel by train with some of my closest friends for a day of snowboarding and of course, the infamous Czech Language test. For without this language test, it really wouldn’t be a Czech Rotary weekend. I spent all day on that Saturday snowboarding in a small group (7 people) who actually knew what they were doing. The only part I didn’t enjoy was having to use T-lifts all day long. You know… the old school bars that skiers can use but snowboarders just look dumb because they have to put it between their legs?!?! Okay, well they always designated someone to go after me in the lift line because 9 times out of 10 I would fall within 4 seconds of trying to get on the lift. Regardless it was a really fun weekend. It made me realize how little time I really have left with some of my inbound friends, because the next Rotary function we have together isn’t until the end of May. After my day of snowboarding on Saturday, I said goodbyes and made the 6 hour journey from Trutnov back to Ceske Budejovice. *Side note* I love how easy it is to travel within the country, kudos to Europe for awesome modes of public transportation.

A big Děkuji to Rotary both in Florida and Czech Republic. I can’t thank you enough for everything you have given me. Ahoj! J

February 27 Journal

I started writing my journal awhile back, but found I had nothing interesting to say and/or that I was having one of those days that nobody really wants to hear about. But, now I have much more interesting things to talk about. This week was a school holiday and I had the opportunity to visit München, Germany (Munich). My current host sister is at University there and she offered to take me for the week and show me around the city. It was a nice break from the everyday, and I enjoyed every second of it.

I walked around Olympia park, the site of the 1972 Olympic games. The grounds were quiet, spare all the construction going on to make the park even nicer. I circled the complex and even had a look at the Olympic swimming pool, which was huge. After walking around and taking far too many pictures, we left and got on the underground to go eat lunch. I must say, I am fascinated with public transport in big cities here. I love it. It’s so practical and it makes me feel like I would never need a car. But, that all changed when we went to the BMW showroom.

This place is awesome. I know I can’t drive until I am back in the states anyways, but really… I loved sitting in the driver’s seat of all the cars that I will not be able to afford until I save up in my retirement fund (which is a long time). Me and my friend Rachael, who came with me to Munich, took dozens of photos because neither one of us had sat behind the wheel of a car in 6 months. We were a bit excited. I drove a car on the Daytona Speedway, via playstation and was pretty satisfied that this was the only amount of driving I could do in Europe. I watched an eager couple pick up their brand new BMW and take pictures with it as it rotated immaculately around the showroom floor. It was a fun time.

On a more serious note, I also had the chance to visit Dachau, the first established concentration camp. This was the camp that served as a model for all the other camps set up throughout Hitler’s reign. It was also the training place of the SS and became known as the “school of violence.” Spending a few hours here made me very thankful that I have the life that I do. I walked around the grounds and had a lot of time to reflect. I saw a short documentary film about the camp and what happened to the people who lived in it. I was surprised at how much that I didn’t know about the Holocaust, and how much I learned after I left. It was also interesting for me because I became interested in what happened to the Czech people who were imprisoned here. I started associating myself with Czechs and reading all about what happened to them throughout this time. Turns out, not many of them were actually imprisoned, because the Czech nation was being used to make weaponry for the war effort. So nobody wanted to mess with the people making the guns. Some were still taken, but it was not nearly as much as the other races or nationalities. It was amazing to me how it just started with one or two “imperfect” races and began to spread to other social groups. I feel like they began making excuses to just throw people into camps. It really shocked me. This was one of the most important days I spent in Munich because it opened my eyes to a past that I knew about, but really had not experienced.

On my last day in Munich, I visited the Deutches Museum, which is a technical museum. It was fun to run around the 6 stories of halls related to all sorts of different things. They have history of ships, planes, boats, physics, astronomy, photography, textiles, toys, pottery, glassmaking, and all sorts of other things. I even got a great view of the city from the Sundial garden on the 5th floor. There were more cars there… but I couldn’t sit in them L. I did however get to pretend I was the captain of a ship, make energy from hydrogen, and see a piano that was older than the United States. I usually like going to museums like this one where the exhibits are a bit more interactive. It was enjoyable, and thanks to it I have so many pictures that I have no idea what I am going to do with.

I think the most interesting thing was when I was leaving Germany. I was actually smiling. Because I had a great vacation, but I was thinking to myself I’m ready to go home. But now, home isn’t Florida, but rather Ceske Budejovice. I got back and told my host family all about my trip, ate dinner, took a shower and went to bed. Sounds exactly how it should be at home, and that’s how I felt. Granted I don’t always agree with mom and dad, but that doesn’t always happen in Florida either. Some things are getting shorter here, like my time left in the Czech Republic. I never thought that it would feel like there is nothing left.

Last night, I went out and just sat in the town square. I thought about everything and realized that I really don’t have that much time left here. I looked up and saw the tourists, smiled and said I’m glad that’s not me. I just reflected on the things I’ve accomplished since arriving, and the things I wish to accomplish before I leave. In the next 3 weeks or so, I become so busy that I don’t even know when I am going to have time to breathe. But, I guess that’s how it always goes for the exchangers. Everything seems to be going so slow, then comes New Years, you blink, and 2 months have already gone by. I can’t wait to share the rest of my adventures here with all of you, and I’m sure there will be more soon. Ahoj J

April 5 Journal

WOW! I have not written in so long. CO? I can’t believe it. I have been so religious about writing every once in a while to let the world know what was happening in my corner of the globe, then I became…. the slacker. I guess I should fill you all in on what has been happening with me.

As much as I want to sit here and say my month of March was amazing and super and spectacular, it is hard to do so. I look back now after starting and restarting this journal multiple times and made the decision to just tell it how it is. Because sugarcoating rarely helps anyone. I had a rough time at beginning of the month just due to general blah, I had to go to the hospital to get my leg cut open (uber fun), and I swear my booty has become the size of a wide load tracker trailer. Despite my personal series of unfortunate events, I have managed to keep striding on to enjoy everything that my life has thrown at me. I have decided that I will never enjoy cross country skiing and that no matter how hard I try not to, I will continue to eat everything on my plate to the point of tummy explosion. The food is just too good. I swear that everything that has happened to me, like being sick for almost 3 weeks solid now, has helped me to realize the good and bad that everyone gets when putting themselves through the exchange experience. You can’t always have a great day. Even the most optimistic people can have moments where they want to give up and just go to something new. If March has taught me anything, it is to just go with whatever life throws at you and learn from experience. Don’t let the little things bother you, pick up your baggage and just keep trucking. Without moments that are dull, you can never stand back up to something ten times better.

For example… I just came back from a week of snowboarding in Slovakia with a group of exchange students. Before this week, I was sick. During the week, well, I was still sick. And now, I’m still a bit sick. My second host family told me that if I didn’t get better before ski week I wasn’t going. Turns out that I wasn’t better, but I told them I thought a week away from my normal home environment would be good. I swear that the second I got to Slovakia and saw all the exchange students that I had not seen in 6 months, I was healed (not really, but I felt a whole lot better). My week will all my friends, old and new, made me feel 1000% better than I did when I arrived, and I would have to say it was the best (or one of the best) weeks of my exchange year. I got to share all my thoughts with other students living in a similar (yet MUCH different) culture, and learned that I wasn’t the only person on exchange hitting multiple speed bumps in a row. I felt like everyone wanted to make me feel better and show me a good time in their country (because there were only 3 of us from CR). It was so much fun. I got to go snowboarding every day, I got to climb up hills because it was too windy, and I even managed to start going on jumps.

I spend hours laughing with my friends, and even got some of the Slovak exchangers to play Carrcassonne (which I am pretty sure is the best game since Monopoly). Except none of them wanted to actually call it Carrcassonne, so we just referred to it as “Build-A-World.” I stayed up late every night and woke up to start each morning just as happy as I was the night before. At the end of the week, I did not want to leave. I was fighting with my suitcases at the door because they wanted to go out the door and I wanted nothing more than to stay a few more days. Leaving all of my friends at the train station to go back to Czech Republic was extremely hard. I won’t see most of them until the Greece/Italy tour in May. But lucky for me, some of them are coming to visit our city in a few days J.

The 10 hour train ride from Liptovský Mikolaš to České Budějovice was long, but so worth it. I arrived back in my city at around 9 pm, packed until 3 am, slept at 4 am, woke up at 8:45 to move to my new host family. I moved from super awesome convenient, city bus riding, within walking distance, waking up 1 hour before school starts to à Milíkovice. Now, every exchanger in Budejovice (minus our Aussie) has had the privilege of gracing the settlement of Milíkovice with our presence. You could possibly say that this is the most international settlement of our region. And, I say settlement because there aren’t enough people or houses to call it a village. I am the 28th resident of our little area, and I couldn’t have a more optimistic opinion. When I moved in I was asked, “About what is population in Jacksonville?” To which I answer around one million. Giggles ensued, and I had just realized I was in the “real” country. Welcome to the Czech Republic. *Side note* you know it’s tiny when there isn’t even a pub within walking distance. So in translation … Milíkovice = amazingly beautiful landscape with whatever natural beauty you could ever ask for, with the drawback of leaving for school an hour before you want to wake up. I can’t complain, my new host family is bigger, 2 brothers and 1 sister, grandparents, animals galore, and never a loss for company.

Now, I have a break from the ordinary because my dad is currently visiting from Florida. I have never been able to feel so good about myself ever. I have been forced to use my language even more than before as I show my dad the culture that I have now adopted as my own. I can speak to all my friends in Czech, order our meals, make sure the transport is taken care of, and yes… impress my family. I think my dad almost wet his pants when we were traveling from Prague back to Ceske Budejovice. We had just unknowingly sat down on the train in the first class cabin (with 2nd class tickets), and the ticket collector had said to me in Czech that it was bad and we should move. Well, we had lots of suitcases and my dad was tired from his flight, so I ran down the small corridor of the train and proceeded to ask how much it would cost to stay there. The attendant was so surprised that I spoke Czech (because he heard us speaking in English) that he told us to just sit and stay. About 30 minutes later he came back and we had a Czech conversation about where I was from and how well I was speaking Czech for a foreigner. He told me he couldn’t speak English, but he thought it sounded really nice. I told him that I thought Czech was such a pretty language and that I had felt such a good connection with the culture after only seven months. About 5 or so minutes later he told me that he had to leave to go do his rounds on the train, to which I said goodbye to him, and the door to our cabin shut. My dad looked like a deer in the headlights… or more like what just happened. As I explained the whole conversation in English he was just so surprised. I’m sure that neither of us thought that I would ever progress this far. Czech was always so hard for me, and until now, I didn’t think I was any good at it. Having the confidence boost from random people that ask me for directions now or who are interested in why I love the Czech language so much is the greatest feeling.

I know that this visit from my family will go by so fast and the rest of my exchange will seem to melt away. The last thing I want to do is leave my home. Because that is what the Czech Republic is now, my home. I can’t imagine leaving all of these things that mean so much to me. As I took my dad these last few days to visit my host families and meet the people who have shaped my life in this country, I have been able to reflect on just how lucky I am. I cannot thank Rotary enough for giving me the chance to be in the Czech Republic. As I walk the streets like a local and share with my dad the life I have been living, it becomes apparent to me that I am multi-cultural. I even enjoyed Easter a bit…. which is quite possibly the most violent Slavic holiday. I was hit with homemade sticks (or switches) by my host brothers and wow… it was abnormal to say the least. The switch that my first host family made was bigger than me! So, I was very far from excited when they pulled it out to hit me. It is said that being hit by these sticks is for good health and luck throughout the year. I was so scared. All day walking around the city I was watching carefully around every corner making sure that i wasn’t going to get smacked across the butt again.

Everything that was once foreign to me is normal, and I have to smile as my Dad watches all my quirks. I eat with both hands, wear new fashions, use strange expressions, and have made many mental notes about the the American culture after living here. It’s amazing how much I can say I have changed over these past few months. Nothing will ever be the same, and I am proud of what I have become. There is so much left to discover and so little time left before I have to go back to Florida. Here’s to making the best of the rest of my exchange year. You were all right…. it goes by so much faster than you would imagine. Thank you again to Rotary, my family, my friends, and Czech Republic. I Love you all.

May 15 Journal

Don’t you just love Volcanoes?

I think that they can sum up the last month, in more ways than one. I’m not sure how many of you this affected but this silly Icelandic volcano made me re-organize much of my family’s visit. Nonetheless, everything managed to work out nicely and I enjoyed every moment with both of my parents. My dad had the chance to see Prague for a whole extra week! And my mom, our single week was enough to make me happier than a clam. I had a chance to visit some cities I would never have gotten an opportunity to see on my own here, and spending time with my parents after so long was a breath of fresh air. But of course, both of them would tell you that seeing all the places wasn’t as cool as coming to visit me. With my dad we did a mini central/eastern European tour, and my mom was fortunate enough to see my Ceskoslovensko playground. They both met my host families and got to see where I have been living. They got thrown into Czech culture and both had the same “Everything is so cool” reaction (which made me proud of my little unknown country here in Europe). Overall, my April spent with my family was super nice. I feel like they have already realized that the little girl they sent over here is no longer the same person. I hope that makes it a bit easier when I return… J

The next most exciting thing that I have been doing is a tour of Greece and Italy with the other exchange students in my district 2240, from Czech Republic and Slovakia. I spent two weeks with some of the coolest people in the entire world, and got to see the birthplace of the ancient world. I swam in the Aegean sea (which is no Atlantic in terms of temperature), went to Delphi, and failed to get into Athens because of bombs and political riots. My first week was a bit confusing because we had to keep changing the itinerary because of the Athens riots. Overall though, Greece was very beautiful. And the food, OOHHHPAHH! It was great too. Looking at all the buildings, I felt like I had gone back in time. All the letters on buildings were reminiscent of my childhood remembrance of watching Hercules, and I wanted nothing more than to find some random person wearing a toga. But, sadly no togas. In Thessaloniki I got to walk along the coast and see a large body of water for the first time since being on exchange. As a Floridian, this is kind of a big deal. I also saw palm trees, which made all of the students from the northern US scream in delight. That was also fun to experience. I got to show off my uni-tard (which is another story I must share later on) to all the world. Greece wasn’t too keen on it, but when we got to Venice in Italy… oh man did we make some friends. From Greece to Italy we took an overnight ferry. It was one of the best days of my trip. I stayed up late playing cards with all my friends and watched the sunrise before we entered the port in Italy. As I said goodbye to Greece and realized half my tour was already over, I couldn’t have been more excited to see Italy.

Italy was just as amazing as I had thought it would be, the people, the atmosphere, and of course… the food. It Italy I visited: Naples, Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, The Vatican City, Rome, Sienna, Lide di Jesolo, and Venice. I started to type what I enjoyed most on this trip and then had to erase my sentence because I realized that I just listed everything over again. I climbed Mount Vesuvius (active volcano…see volcano reference). I saw the Sistine Chapel. I was inside the Ancient Roman Coliseum. I ate the best gelato of my life in Sienna. And Venice, I think it held the best 2 days of my entire life. I walked around Venice with my closest friends all day, checking in every 2 hours with our group, and at the end of the day… I sat along the water with them. We all realized that exchange is almost over, but at the same time, our lives are just getting started. These are really the best days of our lives. Regardless of all the time spent on the bus that I could have lived with being much shorter, I had unreal amounts of fun. I had a 2 week vacation with amazing people and in beautiful places. I took some good pictures to remember it all by.

It has finally gotten to the point where I am fighting to realize it’s all going to be over. My exchange is getting closer to the end every day. I am finally back in my little Milikovice home, with my 28 other residents and my fields that extend to the horizon. This includes, once again, the 30 minute walk to the bus and the love/hate of being in the middle of nowhere. The time I just spent traveling went by so quickly… and in the same amount of time this go around, I will be boarding a plane back to my beloved Jacksonville. Everything is pretty set when I get back. I’m starting university, I’m leaving my home again, and I’ve grown up. I’m definitely not the same person who left. I don’t know who that girl is anymore. I’ve been happier in this past stretch of time than I have ever been in my entire life. I am so happy with who I am and I realize that I can do anything that I set my mind to. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I have been lucky enough to be a part of or experience everything that I have ever dreamed of. Nowadays, I feel like I wake up and I’m still dreaming. The people I spend my time with over here and the experiences I have shared with them are irreplaceable for the rest of my life. I could not be more thankful or blessed to have this experience.

I never truly understood the millions of thank-you messages at the end of all these journals before I left. But now, after living the dreams I’ve had, I fully realize why thanking Rotary is the least I could do. Dekuju moc, Rotary. You really have helped me into becoming an amazing individual.

May 28 Journal

Ještě jednou časopis pro vas = Once more a journal for you 🙂

As I sit here, once again, I’m starting to contemplate going back to Florida. I have my friends asking me if I’m excited to go home. I have mixed feelings about everything going on. But this is it. It’s happening. My exchange is slowly coming to an end, just like everyone said it would one day. I was packing today for my last mandatory Rotary trip: Ceský Krumlov, Slovakia, and Poland. It has taken me all day, and I still haven’t finished packing. I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when I have to fit my life back into those 2 suitcases and put them on a plane with me. Gah, I’m not looking forward to that at all.

The reason it has taken me all day to pack my things is because I’ve been using my well known habit of creative avoidance (which means my blazer got another makeover for the district conference next weekend). Every time I started to fold something to put it in my suitcase I got this weird feeling like it was already over. My host mom asked me this morning what date I was going back to the USA, and I walked upstairs to see my empty suitcase waiting for clothes and then I just had to sit on my bed and think. I know that there are people already on their way home from various places, and one of my best exchange friends is going home next week. but me… NEVER. I don’t want to think about going back. My room, that is not going to feel like my room, or my house, that my family re-modeled while I was gone, or my dogs. Are they even going to recognize me? There are so many things that I am not looking forward to. At the same time, I do have many AMAZING things to look forward to. I get to see my best friend, who I haven’t seen in months and rarely talked to at all these past few months. I get to hug my parents again. I get to start university in the fall. I get to come back to Florida with a new set of traits and attributes that I discovered about myself while away. I have so much to look forward to. A new me, a new life.

But also, I have to leave everything that I have grown to love: Babička Syllabová and her amazing apple strudel (which she needs to give me the recipe before I leave), My host families, my crazy long walk to the bus stop. Which means I’m even admitting that I am going to miss living in Milíkovice. I am going to miss the way it rains and looks all blah, all the time. I am going to miss walking through the park on the way to school. I am going to miss everything about česke budějovice. I am going to miss Velbloud, Modrý Dveře, švejk, masný kramě, želežna pána, Singer, and all the other cool places that I meet with my friends and have made memories. I am going to miss going to the Cajovná every Wednesday, as has been our tradition for at least 5 months now. I’m going to miss all my friends. I am going to miss how I MUST wear my slippers in the house and at school. I am going to miss eating. I think more than I am going to miss most other things. My poor body….

These past 2 weeks after my Greece trip I have had the opportunity to independently travel. After the 1st of the year, there is a rule in my district that you can go visit friends in the district with Rotary permissions. My district 2240, is the whole of Czech Republic and Slovakia. It makes for a large range of travel locations. I went to Slovakia to visit a bunch of my friends. And the answer is yes, it was a bit hard to get a hold of Slovak instead of Czech, but they are really similar. With most differences being in random vocabulary, I was still able to communicate with Frank’s host family (the family I stayed with in Slovakia). I had the greatest time meeting all kinds of people and learning (mostly comparing) the Czech and Slovak cultures. After my 4 days, I had to get back on the train and say čau. It wasn’t easy at all. I did not want to leave, but then again, I find that that is usually how it is on all the trips I’ve taken this year. Overall, I’m just in this state of wishing time would slow down, at the same time I want it to speed up. There are so many contrasting things going on in my mind. I am so happy with my new lifestyle. I love it here. But Florida. so soon. why?!?!?!?!?! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. You have such bad timing.

I should stop complaining. I was given a year, a year to make a difference, to discover, to learn, and to grow as an individual. My year was special, and if anyone were to ask me what I regret, or what I would change, I would reply: nothing. This year in the Czech Republic has been spectacular. I learned to speak Czech, which scares me still when I open my mouth. I made friends across many cultures. I grew up, a lot. And guess what? It’s not over just yet. I have a little less than a month. I still have time. I’m going to be in cram mode, speaking as much Czech as I can before I go to the states, eating all sorts of awesome foods, and spending time with all the people who have made my year absolutely amazing. I owe it to all the people who have made this exchange happen for me to enjoy my last few weeks as much as possible.

Note to all those special Rotarians (you know who you are): you were right, the whole time. J Thanks for everything along the way.

June 24 Journal

This is it. The goodbyes have started, followed by the unknown waves of varying emotions, and ending with the hugs and kisses of promises you hope to keep. As I have said goodbye the last week or so, I have learned some vital lessons. You never truly realize how much you have impacted someone’s life, until you are forced out of it. Let me explain: I have said goodbye to almost all the exchange students in Czech Republic, and to my first two families. I never want to leave. These people have affected me in ways that I did not comprehend were possible. As I went on the Farewell Canoe/Raft trip weekend, I started to see what was happening. Slowly, one by one, they leave home. Each date creeps closer and closer until it suddenly passes in a haze. The scary part… my date is the next date. June 26th. I am home in 2 days.

As I reflect on my year, I can be nothing but a proud exchange student. I spent my year battling ups and downs in order to transform myself into the amazing individual I believe I have become. I pack my suitcases only to reminisce on the time I have had, and thank everyone who has made this possible for me. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that it is over. Maybe the other exchangers know what I am talking about, but until you have lived it, or experienced exchange in one form or another, you will not understand. This is not a vacation. I do not want to leave my Czech friends, family, or life that I have grown to love. I am not ready to walk away from everything I have taken so long to shape and mold. But as it turns out, anything is possible… which means leaving is not the end of the world.

Leaving the Czech Republic is another opportunity that has presented itself (well forced opportunity, but nonetheless)… I can now reach out to people who are interested in the experience. I can be more motivated to study my international courses at university. I can live the life that I have always dreamed I would have, simply because I have the personal confidence that being on exchange has given me. I wish it were easier, in fact, I wish that all the things associated with this year had come without a challenge. But that’s just it. The challenge is necessary. It built my character. It build my emotional boundaries. And this challenge gave me a new lease on life, one that I appreciate and have come to know as my own point of view.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible, the Rotarians, my family, my friends, and everyone else who supported me throughout my exchange. Without all of you, I would not have been able to be as successful as I feel I have been. So in reflection, I can’t believe I actually did it. After all the emotions I ran though this year, and all the hard work, I realized how worth it exchange really is. You become a new person, a new you, and wow, is it amazing to experience. I wish that everyone, someday, could go through this. It is really the best decision I have made in my entire life.

One day, everyone who ever doubted me for one second will look back in appreciation of what I have accomplished. This is not the end, oh no. Trust me. One day, you will see me changing the world. I will be happy. I will live the life I have always dreamed of living. It starts now. Welcome to reality, and the life you always knew you had, but you could never find until this moment. Congratulations. You did it.

July 8 Epilogue

I have always been one of those stunningly awkward individuals you always see catching their gaze in unusual reflective objects. Car windows, ground puddles, the sunglasses of passers by, or even, yes, every mirror that I walk past. Curiously enough, image has never been something that has been overly important to me. For as long as I can remember now, I have tried to avoid make up as much as possible. The only time I would wear it being special occasions and when those around me ran toward me violently with some absurd shade of god knows what goo and tried to apply it on my face, only to tell me “see don’t you look so much prettier.” Truth is it never did anything but make me want to touch my face and rub it all off…

To me, this is how I always looked at my own image. I was constantly lingering at what it was, but never was interested in changing the way it was intended to look with passing time. So, I guess when I started this exchange looking young, cute, and innocent I never really gave it thought. It just happened. A reflection of the personality of the time, I suppose ;).

I entered a life that was… at first strange, melded into awkward, shaped into livable, re-molded into decent, smashed and build up into life itself, re-worked into surprisingly normal, conglomerated into something common, developed into something with ruts, smashed again to reveal even more ruts… (at this point imagine some indescribable low if you got lost somewhere in this sentence), followed by a smoothing of ground, replacing it with new ground, discovering the ground was a solid surface, locating luck and circumstance, noticing the surface is getting more beautiful every day, yearning for time to go faster so you can see what has become of the world you have watched this whole time and suddenly realizing that you want it to stop almost completely, so you don’t leave what you have taken so long to watch flourish.

This life described above was not a battle of self image physically, but the most tiring mental competition I have entered myself into the few 18 years I have lived. I can recall moments where I thought the world was ending, only to be followed by a lapse of something more beautiful than anything human. I subjected my mind to itself. A mental reflection, if you will. It took months and months of guesswork, cultural investigation, language barriers, and exhaustion to come to terms with the real thoughts I had. My personality is now a mix of old and new. My life as most people know it… is just beginning.

It’s interesting how a single year can change the outcome of so many aspects of a life. If I mapped each small choice I made throughout this last year and linked it to other related choices I have made, I could have easily taken my life in millions of directions. The slightest change would have altered things, not drastically, but enough to where it would be just that bit different. It would have become a shade darker or lighter and thicker or thinner.

As I leave the World with my final thoughts (I say world because I’m unsure how many people read this and where on earth they are physically located), I can be nothing but extremely satisfied. It took me a year, but I did it. I learned a lesson that far too many people in their own lives will never accomplish. I have learned to love and appreciate. No matter how many times it is said by various people, or to what degree, I must repeat it now. For this lesson, is the greatest lesson that I’ve learned. I have a love and appreciation for cultures, races, people, and lives that I never could have comprehended. I am happy. I can now go on with the rest of my life, battling the challenges with a stronger mentality, and loving those who deserve it with every ounce I know I can give.

I may look a bit different now, even some of my relatives failed to recognize me. I may use new weird mannerisms. I slowly am relearning to do things as an American, and re-molding my cultural identity. It will not be easy, but it’s not impossible. I have already started to notice the little things… like how doors lock the opposite way, free refills exist, you don’t have to pay to have ketchup at fast food, nobody gives you weird looks when you don’t finish all your food, I can drive, concrete exists everywhere, and of course, I have also noticed how dissimilar I really have become. It’s a good thing J

Being back in Florida isn’t bad. I do miss the life I had in Czech Republic, but as it turns out, I’ve already lived it. It’s time for me to move on to not bigger and better things, but just the rest of my life. It’s out there, and I’m going to go find it.

Maddie’s Bio

Grüezi! I am Maddie Sortino. I am 16 and go to Buchholz High School for German 2, and dual enroll at Santa Fe College for the rest of my classes. I enjoy the dual enrollment program because it gives me more freedom and I don’t have to attend the same class every day. Not only that, but I am able to get ahead on my college credits. I live with my mom, dad, older brother, and my adorable dog. My oldest brother is in the Navy. I was born in Gainesville and lived here 7 years, then moved to Richmond, Virginia for 5 years, and came back. In my free time I like to hang out with friends, explore the outdoors, learn new things, volunteer at the Humane Society, go to shows, and play/listen to music. I’m fairly outgoing and enjoy meeting new people.

I have been wanting to do foreign exchange for the past year when I first heard about it from a friend who did it. I went on the website and began learning everything I could, and reading all the journals. My parents were a bit skeptical at first, and didn’t want me to leave so soon. After my mom went around asking people about it, and everyone told her she should definitely let me, she let me. Immediately after turning 16 I went and got a job to start raising money towards it. I was so excited and would not stop talking about it to all of my friends. They think that what I am doing is either insane or amazing.

One night I was hanging out with former exchange students Brad, who went to Germany, and Liam, who went to Switzerland. I got a call from Jody Davis saying that I was going to Switzerland! It was the absolute happiest I had been in so long. The timing was perfect too. I could barely talk except to yell to them, “I’M GOING TO SWITZERLAND!!!” Switzerland was tied for my number one choice, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to go there. It will definitely be the most enlightening, tough, and fun year of my life. I cannot think of a better way to spend my senior year. Thank you so much Rotary for making this possible.

Tschüss,

Maddie.

 Maddie’s Journals

November 1 Journal

So I can’t believe it. I’ve been living in Switzerland for almost 3 months now. In some ways it feels like I’ve been here forever, and at the same time, it seems like only a week has gone by.

When I woke up on August 7th, I immediately was a basket case of emotions. It was a mixture of panic, depression, and utter excitement. I couldn’t believe the day had actually come. Talking about doing the exchange year was so much easier than when it really came down to doing it. When I walked into the airport, I could not stop shaking. All that was going through my head at the moment was, “What in the world am I doing? Am I crazy?” Well the answer to the first question is – I’m having the most enlightening/amazing/tough year of my life.

On the plane ride to Zurich, I did not sleep at all. One of the enjoyable things I did was watch “Taken” on an international flight to Europe. Quite comical they’d have that as a choice to watch. After I finished watching it, the Dutch guy sitting next to me assured me that, “It is really not like that in Europa.” Then again, Switzerland is about the least scary country. Although it seems to be the least scary country, every Swiss home is required to have a bomb shelter, or have a place reserved in one close by. I find it funny that the neutral country is so prepared for war.

After claiming my baggage, I stumbled out, attempting to manage my suitcases, trying to recognize my host family from pictures, while mildly delirious. I hear, “Maddie?” and they try to hug me, yet I had no open hands to hug back. Then for my first bit of culture shock, they all went to kiss me. I didn’t even do it right, because I pulled away after two kisses, even though it’s three. I immediately felt welcomed after meeting them. I never really went through a very awkward time with my host family. My host mom and dad are both really nice and I like them a lot. I also have two host sisters. One is 14 and lives at home, and the other is 15, but is doing an exchange year in Canada right now. I am fortunate enough to live with the beautiful lake of Zug right in my backyard! It is amazing. This country itself is truly amazing.

For the first few weeks, I would wake up in the morning hearing another language, wondering where in the world I was. I always woke up so confused. It was such a strange feeling. I would usually wake up around 12, and here they eat their warm meal during lunchtime. So I’d have to wake up and eat dinner… that was a little odd getting used to. Everyone always eats at the table together, even if there are only two people at home.

I would also like to point out how ridiculous it is that I am trying to learn a language that everyone here hates to speak. I spend my time learning German, although everyone speaks Swiss German. Where I live it really is not similar at all. The people here would also rather speak English very poorly with you than speak High German (except for my host family). It makes it so much harder to learn, and the fact that I have to attempt to learn to understand two languages– one of which is impossible to study. Viel spass!! (much fun). But hey, not many people say they got to learn two languages on exchange.

Some things I did in my few months in Switzerland include: Going to Germany, taking ships around beautiful lakes, hiking in the amazing Alps, getting a terrible sunburn on only the left side of my body, actually developing a mild tan on only the left side of my body (let it be known, I have never developed any sort of a tan in Florida), seeing my favorite Swiss German rap band, going to a rock music festival, visiting cities all over Switzerland, and being ridiculously confused. I also went sailing for the first time in the French section of Switzerland with some of the strongest winds ever. I feared for my life the entire time, and was still soaked under about 20 pounds of gear. Nonetheless, it was an awesome experience I won’t forget. One of my favorite things to do here is get with a group of friends and go exploring in the forests in the mountains for hours.

The school here is crazy. Most every day I begin at 7:35am and don’t get out until 4pm. I take around 13 classes or so, maybe even more, and don’t understand any of them, except for English. I find myself getting lost in my own mind all the time. The school is also enormous. There are 9 buildings, some of which are up to 5 stories high. I get a workout every day just going to class, so I don’t really see why sport class here is mandatory!

In my town, Zug, there is an international school and also about 20 exchange students just in my school. So being a foreigner is really nothing special. That is kind of a shame, but some of the exchange students are some of the best people I have met. I love being able to say I have friends from all over the world. For my last Rotex weekend, we went to the oldest city in Switzerland and slept in a military bomb shelter. It was so much fun being together with all the exchange students doing crazy things. We had to go up to random Swiss people (typically pretty reserved people…) and ask them to draw a picture for us and teach us a Swiss song.

Things keep progressively getting better for me. All of the good times definitely make up for the bad. I think that is really important for someone to know when they are on exchange. If you want it to, it will get better. Oh and another thing to note– unless you are really lucky, you are going to gain weight! Especially if you go to a country with the most delicious chocolate, bread, cheeses, and everything fatty and delicious.

Thank you so much Rotary, my family, and everyone for giving me such a wonderful opportunity.

Bis später! Maddie

February 21 Journal

So a lot has happened between my last journal and now… obviously. I ended up switching schools for numerous reasons. Now I attend school about a 20-minute bus ride away in the mountains where there is plenty of snow. This means waking up even earlier and getting home even later… I have gone to Zermatt, learned to ski, visited French and Italian Switzerland, celebrated Christmas and New Years, had my three best friends leave me, switched host families, went to Austria for a week, and celebrated Fasnacht.

All of the exchange students had a Rotary weekend together in Zermatt and it was really great. Most every Swiss person I’ve asked from my town hasn’t even gotten the chance to go there. It’s about 4 hours away and there are no cars in the town. It is small and absolutely beautiful, and you could see the famous Matterhorn mountain perfectly from the hostel. The first day we got to explore the town, were set off to do some crazy tasks that made complete strangers think we were crazy, went to a museum, ate fondue, and went dancing. The next day we were supposed to take a train up to the Small Matterhorn but there was such strong wind and snow that we had to go to a lower mountain, but it was still pretty cool.

Learning to ski has probably been one of the coolest things I have been able to do my exchange year. It’s something I have no chance of doing in Florida, and something that I really love doing. I was lucky enough to get everything given to me for free because my Rotary officer knew the head of a popular sports company. So of course I took advantage of this and have been skiing any chance that I can. It is absolutely beautiful to go skiing in Switzerland… the views are unreal. I’m pretty happy to say that at least now I can ski down a slope without falling every second or managing to take a wrong turn and become completely lost.

During Christmas break I went skiing and took a trip to Bellinzona in Italian Switzerland. It’s a small town with three big castles that you can explore. It was so weird to be in the same country yet not be able to communicate in the language you’ve been learning. We tried asking about four people directions, most of which were no help because we could not speak Italian. To start my break two of my best friends went home…Misha from South Africa and Rodrigo from Mexico. It was a weird feeling because I had spent so much of my time with them. The good thing is I know I will be seeing them again.

Christmas in Switzerland was nice. About a week before, I went to Bern, the capital, with my host sister to bake traditional Swiss Christmas cookies with a family friend. They were delicious. We celebrated Christmas on the 24th with family, friends, and a big dinner. It was kind of hard being away from my family, but it wasn’t my first Christmas away from home. There was a little bit of chaos though because in the middle of the evening they realized that there were ashes in the bathroom and then in their bedroom. Afterwards we noticed that the couches, furniture, walls, everything was covered in a light black ash. My host mom began freaking out, and everyone was vacuuming and trying to clean the furniture. We later realized that one of the candles had been burning a piece of the Christmas tree. This is why I prefer the rainbow electric lights we use on our tree at home! Oh, and for Christmas I accumulated a total of three kilograms of chocolate for presents. Keep the weight gain going! For New Years I ended up going to Zurich for fireworks and a big celebration on the street with my friend Johannes from Norway and a bunch of his AFS friends that I had never met. It ended up being a really awesome New Years.

Since then I have visited Geneva with some friends. I have also gone sledding a few times, and even night sledding with lights on your head… that was really funny. I switched host families in the middle of January. I had mixed feelings about it since I had it really well at my first host family. So far it has been a good experience and my new host family is also really nice but very different. A week after the switch my best friend here, Zach, from Australia went home. So now my three favorite people have all gone home and I switched families. It was definitely a big hit for everything to suddenly change like that.

Last week in the beginning of February I went to Bregenz, Austria to visit Zach Clauss for a week. That was really nice. It was interesting comparing the differences between the German and how the people/culture differentiates. I ended up meeting some cool people and we also visited two towns in Germany. When I got back to Switzerland, Fasnacht was being celebrated. This is like Carnival where everyone dresses up, there are parades, parties, etc. and it lasts for a week. I went to one of the parades in Luzern, and I also dressed up as an Indian and went out with some friends one night. It’s pretty funny to walk around the city and everyone is dressed in crazy costumes having a good time.

My German is continuously getting better. I can understand almost anything in normal conversations, and I’m slowly beginning to understand a bit more Swiss German. Now I get to look forward to my parents coming in April and Eurotour in June!

Thanks again for everything! Danke!

Max’s Bio

Konnichi wa! My name is Max Beard. I live in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. I am a 17 year old Senior and I attend Nease High School. My favorite subjects in school are Physics and Psychology. I am also in our schools NJROTC program and actively participate in events. I hope to attend the United States Naval Academy after my exchange and major in Systems Engineering. Afterwards I am going to become a U.S. Navy SEAL.

Some of the things I am interested in outside of school are Tae Kwon Do (which I have been doing for around 12 years), keeping in shape, video games, technology in general, and hanging out with my friends (football games, movies, etc.).

I chose to do this exchange because I love experiencing the diverseness of different cultures and exploring new places. Once I heard I was going to Japan I was ecstatic! That was my number one pick, so you could imagine why I was so excited. I can not wait to go and have the experience of a lifetime! I would like to thank anybody who made this entire trip possible.

 Max’s Journals

August 26 Journal

Let me just start by saying that the country I will be spending the next 10 months of my life in is truly amazing. We can start off with departure day, I’m not quite sure where all the time went to but I left Thursday morning at 6 a.m. and got to Narita airport in Tokyo on Friday at 3 p.m. I was met by Ms. Matsuba (the YE chair for 2550) and Mai Maruyama, a Rotex who went to North Carolina. We sent my luggage to my host family and left the airport headed to ex-district governor Yoshio Ohtake’s lake house at the foot of Mt. Fuji. It took us about 5 hours to get there, partially because we got lost 5 or 6 times and got stuck in traffic in Tokyo. When we finally got there they showed me to my room and I was asleep within 2 minutes. I woke up at about 1:30 a.m. when the lights were turned on and I met Sam Estenson from Minnesota. We went to the upstairs room and talked for about an hour with the other exchange students and Rotex and then went to bed.

I woke up Saturday morning to a standard Japanese breakfast of sushi, tofu, bread, salad, and soup; among other things. After that we had the chance to go to an Onsen or hot spring but only the boys decided to go, you have to be nude to go to them. Everybody then went to lunch and went sightseeing around Hakone. We went to a Japanese supermarket to look around and it was really cool to see the things that they had there. Their biggest ice cream size is equal to our smallest! Their portions will take some getting used to. We went back to the cabin for a while and after that we continued onto dinner. After dinner we went to a karaoke place and that was a blast!

When I woke up Sunday morning I was ushered to the 3rd floor by Mr. Ohtake to see Mt. Fuji. There were umbrella clouds around the top of it which Mr. Ohtake said only happens once or twice a decade. We had breakfast and went to go sightseeing in Hakone more. We rode a cable car and a boat around Lake Ashinoko and then we went to a hot spring water park, it was a lot of fun and I had an amazing time. We went to a Chinese restaurant on the way back and had a huge meal, which included shark fin soup which is very rare and even the adults had never had it before.

On Monday we went to Fujikyu amusement park which was one of the most fun things I have done in a very long time. We only rode 3 roller-coasters because the lines were 2-3 hour waits but we rode a ton of small rides and got to know each other very well. After we left Fujikyu at 5 o’clock we went to a sushi buffet. It was all you can eat in 1 hour 30 minutes. There was a lot of different food there but I loved it all and decided I may even like Japanese food better than American food!

Tuesday was a blur of activity, we woke up at 6 and cleaned the cabin then we left for the Tochigi prefecture which is where I will be living. We had to give a speech in Japanese in front of the Japanese Rotarians and mine went pretty well, at least I think so. After I got to my host family’s house I was exhausted and I spent the rest of the night unpacking and talking – or trying to talk – to my oldest host brother.

Wednesday we went shopping for various things and visited my high school. I got fitted for a school uniform and then walked home with my host brother. I also went to city hall to register as an alien and then went to the post office to send some letters. I start school tomorrow and will be walking there with my oldest host brother who is 16.

I can tell this will be a difficult first couple of months but I am ready for the challenge and I am going to try my best to learn the language as quickly as possible.

 September 8 Journal

As I walked through the hallway with the only teacher at my school that spoke English, albeit broken English, I felt as if everyone in the whole school was looking and talking about me (which I later found out they were). With the amount of stares I was getting I thought I should have been an alien, which I legally am until Sept. 15th. I crossed the final threshold into my homeroom and walked into complete silence. “Great,” I thought, “Well at least I don’t have to make a speech.” Oh how wrong was I … the majority of the class period was spent of me introducing myself, flipping through my Japanese dictionary, introducing myself again, and answering the uncountable amount of questions that followed. Finally I was able to slide into my seat and catch a breath. The day went by at a crawl and since I couldn’t understand any of the lectures the teachers were giving I decided to practice my Japanese, so hopefully in a few months time I would be taking notes like the rest of the class. Since that day everything has proceeded to get better and better, including my Japanese!

The next day I was approached by a few classmates asking me if I wanted to play baseball that night with them and even the Captain of the volleyball team asked me if I would join him in playing after school! Unfortunately I had plans that evening playing baseball with my host Rotary club in their league match. Yes that’s right, the Rotary clubs in Utsunomiya have organized sports teams for the Rotarians. I also was asked that day, or rather told, that I was to prepare a five minute speech in Japanese to present to my host Rotary club about myself and my life and family at home. Luckily I had prepared a slide show of pictures in advance and would just show that to them and explain each as it came up, right? Wrong… Unfortunately, they do not have a projector, so I was going to be stuck up on an empty stage with all the lights on me. But that didn’t have to be done until the next Thursday, so I pushed that out of my mind and went on with my day. That night was a blast, and even though I was stuck in right field (for those who don’t know that’s the position all the bad players get, the same one I got when I played as a kid…) I still had a great time meeting all the Rotarians in my host club.

Ahh, my first day of school on Saturday. It only lasts until noon and is only one class the whole day, which is Math II for me. During lunch, which we eat in our homerooms, I was approached again by Takasu (the captain of the volleyball team) who told me that I should try out for the volleyball club and that tryouts were on Sept. 14th. I had been looking forward to joining a team since starting school so this was an awesome turn of events for me. After school Yoshi (my host brother), his best friend, and a few of his other friends invited me to go to a festival that the all-girls high school down the street was putting on. We wandered around and I got to see some of the popular sports in Japanese high schools, which include tennis, swimming, traditional Japanese archery, ken-do, soccer, and a tea making club.

School started up again on Monday after a ‘holiday’ on Sunday and I felt like I was finally getting into a routine. I walked to school with my host brother and looking around at all the amazing scenery realized every moment that I’m here I enjoy my new home more and more. After third period that day we were told that school was canceled because of the typhoon that was headed our way! A few of Yoshi’s friends came over and we played wii and baseball (Inside! Don’t worry) until dinner at 7. I used the rest of the time to finish up my Rotary speech which ended up only being half in Japanese and half in English, but my classmate Iida was going to help translate the English part at the meeting.

Finally the big day had arrived! I went through my first 3 periods of the day mumbling the words of my speech over and over again but was comforted by the fact that Iida was more nervous than I was! And he was speaking in his own language! My speech went really well and I met a ton of new Rotarians who, thankfully, told me that my Japanese sounded like a native speaker! Although I’m sure they were just being kind it is comforting to know that I am doing well.

Saturday morning I woke up and felt awful! I took my temperature and found it to be 37.9, and having no clue what that meant I took it to my host mother. Who gave a big “Ooh!” and rushed off into a cabinet fishing out some medicine and telling me to go back to bed. At three my host father woke me up and asked me if I wanted a tour of the city; of course I did! He showed me around to all their temples and shrines and we even got lost in a huge camping park in the mountains. We went by a restaurant to say hello to the secretary for the Utsunomiya West Rotary club he was very kind and even taught me a few kanji to remember! After we got home I went straight to bed, after all I was exhausted from my long day of adventure.

Tomorrow my host family is taking me to the hospital to make sure I don’t have swine flu, although I feel better I still have a fever and the school won’t let me come back until I am checked for the flu. It has only been 2 weeks and I have already made great friends and memories that I will never forget. I can’t wait to see what these amazing 10 months has in store for me.

Hope everything is going well!

-Max

September 20 Journal

Well this has been an interesting 2 weeks to say the least. Well the second more interesting than the first so I’ll give a brief overview of the first week. I went to the doctor on Sunday and got tested for swine flu, which thank the heavens I don’t have. He prescribed me some medicine and told me that once my fever went down and my symptoms were gone that I could go back to school… Unfortunately that didn’t end up happening the whole week! I had a fever all the way until Friday evening. The week off school gave me a great chance to learn Japanese though and I really think that I am catching on to the language pretty well. I’m also getting a lot more interested in learning it faster which makes it so much easier to spend a few hours a day on learning it.

On Saturday I went out to dinner with my dad, my two older brothers (16 and 13), and two of my cousins who were 24. We went to a sushi restaurant that had a huge revolving belt around where all the sushi was made and you would know the price by the color of the plate that it was on so you could just take whatever you wanted. It was really good and definitely really different; I want to try to find one in the U.S. when I get back! At the end we stacked up all of our plates and a waiter came by and counted them out and we proceeded to go up front and pay.

Monday I was back at school thankfully! During 3rd period my English reading teacher took me out of class to give me some Japanese lessons which were actually pretty helpful because I could ask him all the questions that I had about grammar and whatnot. We chose sports in gym today that would be the sport that we do for the rest of the year. The one that I chose was soccer and I actually met a ton of new friends that are doing the same so that is good that I will get to see them every time I have P.E.

On Tuesday I went to school feeling fine but I ended up leaving early because I started to have chest pains and a headache. My mother took my temperature when I got home and it ended up being 38.9 C (102.2 F) which was not good at all! Especially since we thought I was getting better. On Wednesday I went to the Doctors and he took a lot more tests than I expected. I ended up getting a chest and abdomen X-Ray, having my blood taken, and getting a urine sample. He told me to go home and get some rest and that he would call when he got the test results from my blood. He called later that night and told me that I had inflammation in my blood vessels and that my white blood cell count was above 20,000 and that the average was somewhere around 2,500, he also said that I should visit the hospital in the morning to get a more extensive X-Ray and a blood culture test done. After dinner Ruri Suga, a Rotex that went to Canada and is in my grade at school, came over and we talked for a while about how I liked Japan and what my hobbies were et cetera. She is really nice and I think that we will be good friends.

So Thursday I woke up around 5:30, ate breakfast and then headed off to the hospital around 8. I had a CAT scan done and a chest X-Ray first. Then they took my blood yet again, which has always been kind-of cool to me so it wasn’t that bad. After about an hour of waiting around they said my results were back and a long and confusing talk in broken Japanese and English I figured out that I would be staying the next two days in the hospital while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me. I mean of course they were saying “Don’t worry!” the whole time but you can’t help but have some thoughts when they tell you that they have no clue what is wrong with you. I can honestly say that my want to learn Japanese had gone up about 10,000% at this point and I learned pretty quickly that the word for “test” actually sounds quite like “cancer” so I was definitely freaking out a bit until my dad corrected my malapropism of the word, albeit it wasn’t quite humorous on my end my father thought it was really hilarious. So after I got my grim fate given to me I was rushed off to get an ECG done. Afterwards I was shown to my room and promptly had an IV shoved in my arm and a bag of who knows what hanging above me. The food was great though, at least that was a positive. But unfortunately my two days at the hospital were rather uneventful. I had brought a book with me so I finished that and spent the rest of my time sleeping.

Saturday I was finally able to go home! The Doctors still hadn’t determined what had caused my fever and high WBC count but they said that both had gone down enough to where it was safe for me to go home. As soon as I got home I had a ton of calls to make to various Rotary members to assure them that I wasn’t dying and didn’t have swine flu or leukemia. Alas I was exhausted even though most of my time at the hospital was spent sleeping, so after answering all of the worrisome e-mails from my parents about what was happening, as they had only been told that I was going to the hospital not what was wrong with me, I went to bed.

Sunday was a pretty restful day; I spent most of it doing Japanese lessons on LiveMocha though which have gotten increasingly more helpful! I went to my little brother’s baseball game and then had dinner with my family. I watched TV for a while and stayed up pretty late, mainly because my brother Yoshi and his friends decided that they wanted to make a band and bought a drum set and some amps for their guitars. They also kindly decided to set up their band directly above my room and since none of them know how to play the drums yet and they decided 2:00 A.M. was an awesome time to rock out. I’m sure you can see why my night was a long one.

Even though I have been sick for half of my first month here this has already been the experience of a lifetime. The experiencing different sights, people, and culture is something that I have always dreamt about doing and hey, I even got to experience a Japanese hospital stay! Not many exchange students can say that!

さよなら

-マックス

September 29 Journal

This week just happened to be infinitely better than last week, now that I’m out of the hospital… Imagine that! Unfortunately, me being in the hospital ruined my family’s plans to take me to a baseball game in the Tokyo Dome and go sightseeing in Kyoto over our week long school break. In the U.S. it would’ve been a fragmented break, but luckily Japan has a law where if a day happens to fall in between two holidays then it automatically becomes a holiday itself! Who could’ve created a better law!?

Monday was a pretty laid back day but my dad gave my brother (Yoshi) and I our new gym membership cards to the gym town the street so we decided it would be a good idea to go check it out. We were there for about an hour and a half and it was really awesome, way different that the YMCA that is near my house. They have the normal workout area, 2 aerobic rooms that they hold various classes in, 4 squash courts, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and an onsen (hot spring) in the locker room!

Tuesday I had a late breakfast with my brothers, minus Yoshi because he slept in until noon, then went out and got McDonalds and brought it back to the house. I talked to my brothers and cousin and watched TV until lunch-time when they insisted that we should go out to an American style restaurant. And I couldn’t resist! I wanted to see what the Japanese thought American food was like. I ended up getting a hamburger, but the Japanese don’t use buns and you eat it with your chopsticks so maybe a little off the average American restaurant. But hey, not all Americans use chopsticks in Japanese restaurants and my burger was really good so I won’t complain. After that we went bowling in a bowling alley that was at least twice the size of any one I have ever been to and the bowling balls were in size order and organized so I didn’t spend 30 minutes looking for the bowling ball that was just the right size. I ended up coming in second overall with a whopping 118 with which I was pretty disappointed. The man two lanes over on the other hand bowled a perfect game except for the 9th frame where he bowled a spare putting him at 277, which I thought was pretty amazing. The rest of my break was pretty relaxed and I spent most of it with my brothers and cousin.

Thursday was my first day back at school in three straight weeks! It was a lot of fun and after each one of my teachers got through asking me if I was feeling alright and then visiting the president of the school during lunch to tell him myself that I was feeling fine, I finally made it through the day. Friday was a P.E. day and since I’m in the soccer club that is what I ended up doing during the period. I am definitely glad I decided to start to play a sport because it’s a great way to meet other people who are very nice and although my soccer is ultimately lacking in skill I still had a lot of fun.

Saturday was a day that two Rotex and another exchange student who lives in Nakagawa (Sam Estenson) had been planning for a while so I was very excited for it. At 11:00 I went out to lunch with my Dad and we had a nice conversation about his days in high school. At around 11:50 we went over to the Utsunomiya train station to meet Sam who was getting off his train and we also met up with Ayano and Mai, two Rotex students who had gone to America. We spent our day meandering around Utsunomiya and since what we had planned to do, which was go-karts, was closed we went to a park and visited the Utsunomiya tower. We went back to my house, and after Ayano and Mai left, Sam and I went out to dinner with my dad, cousins, and brother to a revolving sushi restaurant. Which once again was very, very good. Sam spent the night at my house since there was a Rotary gathering the next day.

Sunday was an exciting day because everyone from the first orientation got to see each other again and talk to each other about their towns and Yukiko was there! We left for Tochigishi at about 9 and got there in roughly 45 minutes. The first part of the meeting we spent talking to all the Rotex about how we were doing and how we liked our host families and our new lives in Japan. We all had to give introduction speeches to the Rotarians, including the Rotex, and after that we all moved over to another building to have lunch. After lunch we spent the rest of the day walking around and sightseeing which included a boat ride on a river, a museum, and free ice cream! After walking back to the meeting place we all said our goodbyes and left with our respective families to go home and of course we were all looking forward to the next orientation in October!

It has been just over a month and I am having the most amazing time here. I can’t wait to see what is in store for me in the coming months and as my grasp of the language increases I’m sure so will the excitement that I get out of this amazing experience that has been given to me.

October 18 Journal

Alright so it’s been a while since I’ve written about my time here in Japan so I have got a lot to talk about!

We had exam week at school and since the only exams they were letting me take were English reading and Biology I didn’t do much other than study Japanese and play Sudoku. I actually did really well on both my Biology and English exams which I was happy about. I would’ve taken the Physics exam on Friday but my Dad decided to take me and my cousin みょじょ to Nikko that day for a sightseeing trip!

So at around 9 in the morning on Friday we left the house. My host father dropped my cousin and I off at an onsen (Hot spring) while he went off to get some things done. We were there for about an hour and I had a good time. I find the hot springs really relaxing even though the constant influx of questions from strangers doesn’t stop. After we were all rested up, みょじょ and I piled back in the van and we were headed back towards Nikko. To get to the top of the mountain where Nikko is located you have to first drive up a huge winding slope to the top, this particular slope prides itself in having 48 separate hairpin turns to get to the top. On the way up my cousin thought it would be fun to count every turn so every time we reached one we would all yell out the number. It actually passed the time pretty quickly.

We visited 3 different waterfalls while we were there; the first was Kegon falls, the second was Riyuzu falls, and the third was Yudaki falls. All three were really beautiful and I got some good pictures of them. We stopped by the Toshogu shrine and walked around there for a while. I always thought that Japanese architecture was really interesting so I had a great time looking at some of the structures that they had there. Lastly before we headed home we visited the famous Shinkyo or Sacred Bridge. While the bridge is only from 1636 the surrounding mountains were explored during the year 767. After walking around the bridge and snapping a few photos we all piled back in the car and headed home. I would say after about 2 minutes, both みょじょ and I were asleep in the car. What can I say – it’s been a long time since I have been a tourist!

So there were still exams going on when I got back to school on Monday, so more reading and Sudoku for me. Until Wednesday when… my younger brother Atsushi got Swine flu! Now in America this would be no biggie, life would go on as normal and Atsushi would get better, then go back to school. But this does not happen in Japan. My brothers and I were quarantined and not allowed to go to school until the next Tuesday. Now this happened on Thursday so luckily there wasn’t that much time to be spent away from school since Friday there was a big ceremony going on that we were missing school for anyways and Monday was a holiday.

Friday morning I woke up, went running, showered, read some, ate breakfast, and then put on my school uniform for my host dad’s grandfather’s 1 year memorial service. This was probably one of the most interesting things I have been to so far. There was a lot of chanting and praying that I found really interesting, partially just trying to translate what they were all saying. This went on for about 45 minutes before they had an incense lighting ceremony. There were three boxes with coals in front of the shrine and everyone that was in attendance (there were probably about 100 people there) would walk up, sit in front of the box, take a pinch of incense from a jar next to it, and throw it onto the coals. After that my Dad and his brother both spoke about their father and then we all headed off to the Utsunomiya Grand Hotel for a luncheon. The lunch was great and even though all the portions were small there were so many of them by the end it was a struggle just to finish.

After lunch I was really excited to get home because this weekend was the weekend that I was going to go stay in Nakagawa for the rice harvesting festival! I got invited by another exchange student, Sam Estenson (from MN), who is living in Nakagawa. Every year they host this homestay weekend and various exchange students from across Japan come and participate (not just Rotary exchange students). I had a blast getting to know a lot of new people and learning how to harvest rice the old fashioned way, not with a combine.

I left at about 4 for Utsunomiya station and boarded my first train ever! I was really excited about it and actually ended up enjoying it. Although apparently I liked being on the train a little too much because I missed my stop; after going through about 5 minutes of country with no city to be seen, I decided that I should probably get off at the next stop. But when I got off I found out that the next train going back the way I came wasn’t getting there for another 30 minutes. Fortunately my host mom had gotten me some doughnuts for the trip so I sat down in the deserted train station and ate my doughnuts, which were pretty good considering the circumstances. After I got to the correct station, I boarded a bus with all the other exchange students who were meeting at that station (it is the nearest train station to Sam’s town) and we headed off to Nakagawa.

I stayed with a homestay family while I was there that I met as soon as I arrived. I really liked them and they even made me promise that if I came to visit Sam again that I would stay with them! On Saturday we had the rice harvesting and after that everyone came together for a huge lunchtime meal and together we made this giant sushi roll. Before I left on Sunday my homestay family and I went bowling and went out to a soba restaurant for lunch. Instead of letting me take the train back again (since I missed my exit on the way there) my father offered to drive me home and even said it was 45 minutes faster. So their 3 kids and I piled in the van and we made it back to Utsunomiya in record time.

During school this week I had to get an ECG test for the field trip just like all the other students. After the test there was a super long assembly that lasted until an hour and a half after school was supposed to end. I have joined the Volleyball club and can come and play with them any day after school that I want to. I really enjoy playing volleyball and it is a great chance for me to get to know some new people and start to learn the language as it is used in an everyday environment.

Until next time, じゃね！

-マックス

November 13 Journal

Wow, it has almost been 3 months that I have been in this surreal country. It seems that sometimes the moments fly by almost too quickly to differentiate them and other times they seem to crawl by in agonizing detail.

To start, my host parents have cracked down on security around the house, keeping all the doors locked at all times because my Dad’s bag and iPhone got stolen out of our house around October 20th! The thief even ended up spending around 50,000円 on my host father’s credit card.

The Saturday after that I went to Round 1 (An Adventure Landing type place) with a group of current and past Rotary Exchange students and a Swedish exchange student from a different program. This place was amazing let me tell you they had anything you could imagine. Down on the first and second floors were all kinds of slot machines and chance games, up on the third floor you had all the arcade games like Time Crisis, Dance Dance Revolution, and Racing games but they were all free! Unlike at any other place I had been to you could play any of them as many times as you wanted to for no cost. They also had a ton of mini sports rooms set up for ping-pong, a mini pond with real fish that you could catch, basketball, bowling, roller skating, and even a huge magazine room with about 20 massage chairs! On the roof they had 7 or 8 batting cages, 2 tennis courts, a volleyball court, a soccer field, and even an archery range!

The next day we had our District Rotary conference and I was under the impression that I had to write a speech that I was to present in front of about 250+ Rotarian’s that were going to be there. Only to realize once I got there all I had to say was my name and my host club, you can bet I was pretty relieved after that.

Volleyball at school has been fun but I am thinking about joining the Soccer club because I enjoy soccer a lot more and there are only about 6 people on the boys volleyball team. Halloween came up pretty quickly and left just as fast, I don’t think one person that I knew even mentioned it, hah! On the 31st Nikko was hosting a Soba festival so my host family and I drove there for lunch and walked around a bit and then come back home. The next day was my school’s festival which I spent a couple of hours at with my host brothers, it was nice to see all the students since normally I only see those that are in my homeroom. Sunday I went to a Jazz festival with my host Dad and my little brother Hitoshi, the music was great and it was fun just to get out and see the city with my family.

The next two days were Holy days which meant no school but on Monday I almost walked out the door because my host Mom had forgotten. If it wasn’t for my Host father I would’ve completely shown up at school and been really confused.

That weekend we had another Rotary orientation but this time it was for the new outbound exchange students who would be leaving the following year. We had to make Power-points on our states and countries in order to promote them to the outbounds.

The Friday before Gustaf (Swedish exchange student), Ayano (Rotex from MN), and I went to Karaoke in Utsunomiya. It was a blast as I have never done real karaoke before. After Karaoke we got dinner before all of us headed home.

The overnight orientation at Akiyama was a blast. When we all got there we had lunch and then had about a 3 hour break until the meeting started. We all gave our speeches and the rebounds gave their presentations on their respective countries. We didn’t have time for our presentations so we postponed them until Sunday. After we all had dinner together the exchange students and outbounds got together and played some games hosted by the Rotex. We played Bingo (I won a Hello Kitty Blanket), a pictionary type game, and some type of game that involved shoving your facing in flour…. Overall it was really fun and it was great to meet the people who would be coming to our homes in the coming year.

Sunday after waking up we all went out to a field behind the cabins for some morning exercises and a quick walk. The fall colors here in Japan are beautiful and are something I am just not used to seeing in Florida. After we got back and had breakfast we finished up all of our presentations. I got a ride home from Ayano and on the way back we stopped for Ramen with her mom and grandmother (可愛い!).

This week at school has been rather uneventful, playing soccer and having Japanese lessons. It’s starting to feel like normal. I am looking forward to visiting Tokyo with some of my friends in late November and then December 3rd I have my school trip to Okinawa!

That’s all for now but with so much coming up in the next few weeks I’m sure I will be writing again soon!

December 22 Journal

Wow… What an amazing time I have been having lately, with my first trip to Tokyo, my school trip to Okinawa, and changing host families I have been truly blessed with this experience. And it’s not even half over yet.

Unfortunately the end of November was more of a routine than anything but that is expected after living somewhere for 3 months. It was filled with school, a lot of running, and even more Farmville (yes, I got addicted). Even in a routine though Japan never ceases to surprise me and I was about to have one of the busiest weeks of my life.

It started off with me going to on my first trip to Tokyo. I went with all the other exchange students in my area and we all ended up taking the same train which was pretty fun. When we got there we went straight to Kaminari-Mon or “The Lightening Gate”. This was followed by lunch and then we all walked around the main tourist area which is chocked full of stores, each one selling their own souvenirs and keepsakes that every good visitor just has to have one of.

After that we split up, half the group going clothes shopping and the other (consisting of only guys) headed to Akihabara or the world famous electric town. Akihabara is definitely something else, the first thing you have to think when you get there is “Where do I want to go?” There are tons of multi level stores with everything electronic you can think of. We decided to head to the first multi-level store we store. This one had (among other things) a floor devoted to figurines and a whole store devoted to Pokémon cards (some pricing up to 99,999 yen or 1000$). A few floors filled with weird and strange costumes and other oddities, some appropriate and some not even close. After that came the arcade, where I was surprised to find a man in skins (running or workout gear) stretched right inside the arcade. I was even more surprised when he hopped on the DDR machine and with about 25 people watching (no videos allowed or I certainly would have taken one) he started to play a song on the hardest difficulty on both of the pads at once! After that we headed back out and went over to a book store where I browsed around for a while Simon looked for a new game for his PS3. Finally it was time to head back to Harajuku and meet up with the rest of the group and after a quick dinner at McDonalds (classy I know) and a 2 hour train ride I was back home and asleep within minutes.

This didn’t end my exciting week though as a few days later I left on a plane out of Tokyo headed off to the tropical Islands of Okinawa. Now I could spend a long time talking about Okinawa but I will try to cut it down and only get at the good parts.

Now I was a little angry at myself on this trip because I forgot my camera and there were a lot of amazing sights to see here but hopefully I will end up getting some pictures from my classmates. The first day we visited two places, the Himeyuri Peace Museum and the Okinawa Peace Memorial. The Peace memorial is a huge area that borders the ocean and has a massive amount of marble slabs that contain on them all the names of both the American and Japanese that died in WWII. But by far the most amazing part of the day was getting to see the ocean again for the first time in months.沖縄の海はとてもきれいでした。This was I can honestly say the first thing that actually made me completely homesick and standing out on the beach with only the ocean in sight it was almost as if I was at home again. After this we had a nice long bus ride to our hotel where we immediately had dinner. There were 7 courses and I don’t think any table completely finished any of the courses. Except for my table of course, we were on a mission and we weren’t going to be beaten. By the end of the meal we were all groaning and definitely ready for a nice rest.

For the sake of space I will combine the second and third day and skip breakfast and dinner. But don’t worry, my table finished our meal every night much to the disappointment of the boy who went to the bathroom and came back to find that his plate had three times the amount of food on it as when he left. Friday we went to a nature preserve called Bios and again I was reminded how angry I was that I forgot my camera. We walked around a little, got to play with the goats, and went on a boat ride in a swamp. Okinawa was really starting to remind me of Florida, except for the mountains of course we don’t have those in Florida.

After we left Bios we went to an old style Okinawa town that reminded me of Williamsburg, Virginia. I picked up some nice souvenirs there to send out as Christmas presents to friends and family. After lunch and yet another bus ride we went to the Churami Aquarium. It was a cool place to see but Aquariums just aren’t something I can stay in for an extended period of time, so after a quick run through my group and I walked around outside and then headed down to the beach to sit and talk. We headed back to the hotel after that and it was a pretty late night but I eventually got some sleep.

The third day was probably the most fun. In the morning there were all different activities that you could sign up for. The one my teacher stuck me with was ironically looking for shells on the beach. Now don’t get me wrong, it was pretty fun. But I do wish I had done one like harvesting sugarcane or learning to cook Okinawa style foods. When we finished that we had lunch at the hotel where we would be spending that night (A different hotel than the night before) and then went to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum. Unfortunately I think I spent longer in the bathroom than I did browsing the museum (which wasn’t long, mind you). Fortunately after my brief visit I went back to the bus and found that my whole class was already asleep and had finished their tours too. When the teachers got done browsing around we all headed over to the main street and they told us we had 2 hours to wander around the many shops and stores that lined the street. I ended up spending most of my time talking to a Marine who was stationed in Okinawa about his time here. After everyone finished shopping everyone was exhausted so we piled on the bus and went back to the hotel for a nice meal and some sleep.

Sunday was the last day of my stay in Okinawa. Overall it wasn’t too exciting, but it was still fun. In the morning we headed off to Shurijo Castle Park. After a guided walkthrough and buying some postcards in the gift shop my classmates and I got some good shut-eye on the bus in the underground parking garage. After a nice nap we headed off to the airport where we had some time to wander around before catching our flight at 12:55. When I finally got back to the temple it was about 7:10 and I was, to say the least, done in for the night. The next day was a holiday off from school so luckily I got to sleep in.

After another day of watching the latest Gossip Girl it was finally time for me to move Host Families. In the morning my room was looking pretty desolate and I packed up some last minute things and then headed off to school. After school we packed all of my things into my counselor’s car and then I rode my bike over to the Baba’s house. It took me a long while and we had dinner at 9 o’clock. After dinner we headed over to the store to get me a pillow, a lunchbox, and a second lock for my bike. When we got back I took a shower and then headed off to bed.

This past weekend was my Rotary Christmas party. It was, to put it simply, a blast. I had gone early with Ayano to help wrap presents for the party. But after about 2 hours everyone else started to arrive. Once everyone was there the outbound students for next year gave speeches about the countries that they were going to be heading too next year. After that we played a version of Russian roulette that involved treats filled with spicy mustard. We got to watch a really ‘cool’ magic show and have a nice pre-meal before we headed over to the bowling alley. I ended up bowling a measly 132 but was pretty happy with myself because I haven’t bowled in a while. My score won the highest for the kids but didn’t even match the highest for the adults, which was 246. Dinner was good and gave everyone a chance to talk and to say goodbye when it was all over. It is always great to see all the exchange students together in one place because we all end up having a great time.

The past few weeks with the Baba’s has been absolutely amazing and I feel like I have gotten closer to them in 2 weeks then I had with the Inaki’s in 4 months. They are nice and always very helpful when I have a question about the Japanese language. My winter break just started today and will hopefully prove to be very exciting. I am headed to Tokyo today to spend 5 days there with some other friends and will be going skiing too! Sorry it has been so long since my last journal! But I promise I will write again soon about my Winter Break!!

January 23 Journal

Well it has been quite a while since I have written a journal, let me assure you though, it is no fault of my own… I promise. Alright well maybe I have been procrastinating this one for a while and I would have liked to have gotten it out sometime right after the New Year. But alas, it is now late January and I am just now sitting down to write about my very fun holidays.

Alright well where did we leave off? Oh yes, the start of my Winter break. Well the day after school ended for the holidays I was whisked away to Tokyo for what might have been one of the most fun Christmases I have had. The first night in Tokyo I got to meet my friend’s, who is also my host sister, host brother from when she was an exchange student in Minnesota. This year he is also an exchange student and was going to be spending the whole holiday with us. So after getting acquainted we headed back to Ayano’s (My host sister) apartment, grabbed some dinner, and hit the sack. Ayano had college classes the next day so Luke and I meandered our way over to Akihabara to look for some games and the other oddities that are to be found there. After grabbing some lunch at a local BK we headed back to the apartment to help everyone else prepare for the Christmas party that we were having. The party was a lot of fun and the night was even more fun because we headed out to see one of the many light shows that Tokyo has to offer around Christmas time. When we had our fill of the night life of Tokyo we found our way back to the apartment and got some much needed rest.

The next few days followed pretty much the same schedule. We moseyed around the Imperial Gardens, caught glimpse of Tokyo tower, went to a very rare Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, and managed (I still don’t know how) to go to McDonalds at least 5 times. We also did Karaoke from 11 P.M. to 5 A.M. which was a blast, although Ayano fell asleep within the first 30 minutes of us being there. The day after Karaoke was spent mostly sleeping and then cleaning up before we headed out to Utsunomiya (home) with Luke in tow. As soon as introductions were over we all went back to sleep and slept pretty well through the night.

The next day Luke, Ayano, and I went over to a Rotarian’s house to participate in their annual Mochi making ceremony. For those of you who don’t know what Mochi is, it is basically rice that is pounded into a paste and then shaped and eaten, especially around the New Year. We spent most of the day doing that and then went to an onsen and got dinner before coming home exhausted. We picked up Sam Estenson (another exchange student from Minnesota) from the train station on the way home and then we all got some much needed rest.

Two days after that we all went skiing, well I went snowboarding (this was my first time naturally, being from Florida) because it’s more manly, right? Well, to start with we thought we had found the easiest route at the very top of the mountain but when we got up there apparently it was a kid’s play zone and was closed off anyway. So I thought “What the hay, I might as well go down the hard slope all the way to the bottom. I’ll just go slowly.” I probably should have learned how to brake on a snowboard before I tried that, so after I ended up flipping head over heels all the way down the slope, I discovered at the bottom that my camera had fallen out of my pocket somewhere along my path of devastation. Luckily, about 15 minutes after I lost it someone turned it in to the lost and found with only a few scratches to bear. The rest of the day went without incident and by the end of the day I was going down the slopes like a pro.

The rest of my break was all a blur. Sam left soon after because he had to be home before the New Year. Luke and I went to Nikko with my host Dad and also went with him to a temple and out for coffee on New Year’s Day. I showed Luke around Utsunomiya for a day, including my old host family’s temple, my school, and one of the big parks around my area. Luke left around the 3rd and Ayano went back to college the same day.

The next five days were spent going running, reading books, riding my bike, and practicing my Japanese. This last weekend I spent with all the exchange students from our district in Sano checking out one of the light shows and looking at some old original school houses.

Next weekend I am going to Disney in Tokyo and will finally see how it compares to Disney in good old Orlando. I’ll make sure I keep you guys informed.

Until then, Sayonara!

-Max

April 8 Journal

Wow! It has almost been two months since my last journal! And to think that when I got here I thought I would be writing every week! Hah!

It has been an eventful past two months so bear with me. At the beginning of February I went to Tokyo: Disney Sea, which is just like the normal Disney other than the fact that there is a canal running throughout the whole park. It was a blast, and was also a great opportunity to get to know some of the outbound exchange students.

February in general was a pretty average month. I started to get used to my host family’s schedule and could probably have rode my bike to school asleep (In fact, I may have a few times). But just because it was average doesn’t mean that is was boring. The month was sprinkled with little events: A District Rotary meeting, various events with friends, and even the occasional Rotary club meeting. March has probably been the most fun month I have had while here in Japan. First of all, I only had 7 days of school the whole month! Secondly, I got to travel Japan with my family, who I hadn’t seen for 7 whole months!

March was a whirl of activity and after I had gotten used to the fact that I was going to see my REAL parents it seemed I was already on my way to pick them up from the airport. We spent three days in Utsunomiya, two days meandering around Osaka and Kyoto, and the last three days staked out in a deluxe suite at the Hilton in Tokyo.

The days seemed to fly by and before I knew it they were on their way back to Florida. There was no rest for me though, as soon as they were gone I was sent off to the annual RYLA seminar, which here in my district is only 2 days and 1 night. The seminar was a lot of fun and since all of the new outbound exchange students were there it was a great chance to get to know them all better. After returning from RYLA I immediately started on a speech about the weekend to present to my Rotary club.

And just yesterday all of the exchange students around Utsunomiya, only 3 of the 5 inbounds, got together and went to Karaoke and lunch. I also found out yesterday that the outbound who is heading to Florida, Chisato, will be hosted by my sponsor club and may even be living with my family next year!

Well that’s it for now, I will write again when I change host families on May 1st!

じゃあまた！

See you later!

May 18 Journal

Hey everyone!

Once again it has been too long since I have written a journal. But as it gets down to my last days here I find myself wanting to do everything so that I know when I get home I won’t have any regrets. This past month and a half started off really tough but has gotten a lot better and I am happy that I will be leaving Japan in high spirits.

At the beginning of the month I found out that my Grandfather passed away. For about a week I was feeling pretty down and thinking about home and my family a lot. In the end I decided to make the most of the time I have left here and to do my best in studying the language and culture.

I went to Yokohama with my host family and got to see the Cherry blossoms in Tokyo, which were absolutely beautiful. That same weekend there was a Rotary event for all the inbounds and future outbounds where we got to make soba (Buckwheat noodles). After making it we all got to sit down and enjoy our great cooking.

I have started to help Chisato, a future RYE exchange student (she will also be hosted by my Rotary Club at home) with her English and getting all her school forms and what not ready for next year. I got to go out to dinner with her parents and had a really great time getting to know them.

I spent one weekend staying with a pair of Rotarians while my host family was out of town and attended a Rotary sponsored event with them at Nikko. We got to plant trees in an old coal mine area where there was no vegetation whatsoever. The goal of the event is to plant 10,000 trees over a 10 year period. My school’s interact club also came and I got to meet the local Rotary clubs Rotaract members.

A week after this event I said goodbye to my host family the Baba’s and after a day of strenuous packing (and sending 2 huge boxes home to America) I headed out on my bike while my counselor drove my luggage. My current host family is Mr. and Ms. Okagawa and fortunately no more 30 minute bike rides for me. They are a leisurely 8 minutes from my school and only about 1 minute from the center of town and 2 huge malls (not that I have any room in my suitcases to buy anything).

My moving host families also coincided with Golden Week (a string of Japanese holidays that is 5 days long). That Sunday my host father and I (keep in mind he is 82 years old) made an hour long trek/climb up Kogashi mountain, which is about a 20 minute drive from my town. I had a great time and really got to know my host father well, I also found out that he is the Chairman of the Rotaract club so I would be seeing a lot of the friends that I met in Nikko the past week.

On my last day of Golden week I ran in a 10k race at a car/motorcycle track in a town called Motegi. It was one of the first sunny days Japan had seen for a while and was also brutally hot, I got sunburned for the first time since coming to Japan!

Alright, I realize I am being a little long winded so I will summarize the rest of this month. The weekend was a lot of fun. I went to Tokyo with a fellow exchange student and we spent the day shopping (well she did, I didn’t spend a dime), eating, and just having a great time. The next day was the District Rotary meeting in which myself and the other inbound students would be giving our LAST speeches! Albeit we still have our host club speeches to give but we were excited nonetheless. Before the meeting started we all got to visit a very special ceremony at a temple that few people (especially foreigners) get to see. After we had finished giving our speeches and making our goodbyes my host father and I went over to another Rotarian’s house to see his two Katanas (Samurai swords). Mind you, these were not fake and each one was around $4,000 when he got them and he said they are probably worth double that now. It was a really interesting experience and I am definitely glad that I had the chance to see them.

This past week was exam week at school so nothing too exciting going on. There has been so much during this exchange that I am thankful for and I’ve got no clue how the time has passed so quickly. All I can do now is make the most of the 30 days that I have left here, and of course look forward to writing one more journal for Al!

Until next time,

-Max

Mely’s Bio

“Dream as you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” –James Dean

Konnichiwa! That’s hello in Japanese in case ya were wondering. My name is Melissa Rivillas (Mely) and I’m proud to announce that I will be spending my 2009-2010 year in Japan. I’m an 18 year old senior at Monarch High School. I currently reside in Coconut Creek, Florida with my mother and step-father.

I enjoy cooking, jogging, and working… Umm, never mind, scratch working because is not one of my favorites but shopping is LOL!!! But my main passion in life is to travel the world. Before I die I want to visit the remaining wonders of the world.

I am guessing you were wondering where I’m from. I’m Colombian and American. That mixed is called Colombinamericana haha. Last of all, I wanted to take this time to thank the Rotary Club and my parents for supporting me on this adventure that I’m about to partake in.

 Mely’s Journals

August 25 Journal

I can’t believe that time has flown by so quick that I’m already in such a beautiful country. I always remember as a video that keeps playing in my head the day Mr. Kalter told me that news from Japan had just arrived. Just there I felt the compound of emotions hitting me from head to toes. I didn’t know whether to scream because of joy or to cry because I was leaving. I remember when I watch this Japanese scary movie, and that same night I had a dream that I was speaking Japanese; what a quick transition I just made there.

In the month of July I traveled around to many places, but just couldn’t wait to leave regardless of how much fun I was having. Packing sure was easy, despite of me being a girl. Both of my luggages only weighed 40 lbs. I departed from Miami airport August 21st. I must admit that it has been one sad day. I recall seeing both of my parents, and step-parents crying so much after I hugged them and still at that moment it hadn’t hit me yet.

The flight Miami to Chicago was a smooth one accompanied by Michael Anderson, also outbound to Japan. My first smile of the day was when Grant Simon, outbound to Japan hugged me and said we are going to be living so close to each other, I immediately responded, “what a dream come true,” and after that my whole trip was filled with nothing else but happiness and thankfulness for everything. It was an amazing feeling to see all of these exchange students talking to each other at the airport all departing all over Japan.

Once again, I sat by Michael Anderson the whole 13 hours to Tokyo. After departing from Chicago, an hour later, the airplane instantly became chaotic because of all the 20 exchange students just up and down that plane filled with mixed emotions, because in just 13 hours their new lives were about to take a 360 degree turn. I thought to myself, “I am more than ready.”

My arrival to the Narita airport in Tokyo, was better than I would have ever thought. The lines and craziness weren’t as much as I was told. Grant and I each paid 3000 yens to take a public bus from Narita airport to Haneda airport. It took about one hour and 30 minutes to get from one airport to the other. After arriving to Haneda airport our wait time was 3 hours. Time actually went by so quick – good thing because I just couldn’t wait until I meet my new host parents, which by the way are just the best of the best.. My stomach was filled with butterflies when I saw my host mother and sister jumping up and down filled with joy to see me with a big sign that says, “Welcome Mely,” with my all time favorite Tweety bird drawn. I am currently living at Yurika Ozaki’s house (09-10 Inbound in Florida). The drive from Okayama airport to Takahashi City was about one hour. My dinner that night was vanilla ice cream mmmmmm how delicious. I begin school September 1st and can’t wait 🙂 Since my arrival to beautiful Takahashi City, I’ve been getting to know the city and am just impressed with how kawaii (cute) it is.

実現するすべての夢

October 16 Journal

Let me begin with… I love Japan!

It is unbelievable to witness how every minute flies by so quickly. It has been over a month since I first arrived to my host country, and already been through many stages. The changes I have made both physically and emotionally have become noticeable at this point of my exchange. The lack of dependence from both my mother and father makes me a better and stronger person as the days pass by. I feel very privileged at my host parents’ home because I feel like one of them in every sense. I am blessed to have everything that has been given to me. My natural parents back home support me, love me, and are there for me no matter. My comfort zone here is as if I was back home, so good to be true. I love when my host parents brag about how great I am. I give them a cute smile, then, blush. As time passes by, more and more memories are being built forever; the best memories I shall say. The simplest things reward me in every way; for example, helping out the elder at the train stations, giving the people a smile, and seeing things in a positive way. Fortunately, homesickness has NOT struck me, and hoping it will not get to me.

In less than two months, I have visited various places. On a special trip I took to Hiroshima, with my school teacher and friend, made me see the world in different eyes now. It was unbelievable to me getting up close to the Atomic Bomb Memorials; I immediately felt the shivers to think something that horrid could ever happen, and how it was afterwards. The best part of traveling is the transportation method. I take the Shinkansen (Japanese Bullet Train) whenever I travel long distance. I have never been on such a comfortable train in my life. It feels as fast and powerful as an airplane, yes for that one. Sometimes, I can’t believe America doesn’t have the technology Japan has, seriously! It is the funniest thing every time I see a Shinkansen, I say it’s my boyfriend and shout out bye-bye.

Recalling back when I first arrived to Japan, I went to a store and got so stressed out to see how expensive it is to buy a simple pencil. When I look at the bright side, I have already become more adjusted to the prices and have learned how to manage my monthly allowance well. Japanese teenage girls get entertained easily. I LOVE that about them. That would NEVER happen in America, because we always make everything hard and get bored easily. So, on October 12th, I turned 19 years old. I already feel so old. Had a blast the whole day, luckily there was no school that day, so instead I went shopping and got a few things. Until next time… 

November 10 Journal

I have no regrets to have come to Japan. Three months have already passed into my exchange here. The fall season here is awe to my eyes. The season change is different in every way compared to Florida. It is my first time ever to see the leaves change colors from green to yellow, orange, red, and brown J It is priceless to ride along the train, listen to smooth jazz, and look at nature that sounds me all around.

I didn’t get the country of my choice but, at the end of the day it isn’t all about getting the country that you wanted. You begin to realize that, once you fall in love with your new surroundings and life. As I say, “Nothing is ever easy.” Perseverance is the key to a successful exchange. As I turn into a young adult, I can notice the change in me each and every day more, and more. At times, I feel as if I didn’t know who I really am anymore. So, I meditate for a couple of minutes to clear my mind off, and continue my day as smooth as possible.

While on my exchange, life has taught me many things in a short period of time. From life changing experiences to tough lessons learned. At the end, I see the tough lessons learned as something positive in my life because, it’s all a stage in which we must go through. I feel very fortunate to be here regardless of the pain I have encountered because of culture differences.

During these three months, I have learned the hard way that my family is and will always be #1 in my life. At some point during my early teenage days, I was one rebellious girl that didn’t value anything, and viewed life as a joke. Ungrateful with everything, treated my loved ones as nothing. Thankfully enough, this exchange has changed my life forever. Today, my mind is tuned to positive thinking, my heart opens a little more each day, helping the ones in need, expanding my knowledge, accepting everything as a stage I must go through, and the most important thing is my family; my greatest treasure ever.

In this journal, I have expressed many personal things from the past. Hopefully, this changes someone’s attitude for good. Time is gold for me, so I must go now. Please be safe and take care.

Until next time,

Mely

December 22 Journal

I can’t believe the holidays are here. The winter season in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, is 100% different compared to Florida’s winter season. The average weather here since October has ranged from the 60’s to the 30’s. I’m not used to this cold weather; therefore at times I get a sore throat and begin to cough. I finally got to see snow for the first time in my life. It was such a dream come true to witness the snow falling. I have been praying for the longest time for it to snow. I can’t wait until I go skiing with my first host family in January; fortunately my first host father is professional at skiing.

On November 29th, I moved into my second host family’s home. On that same day I had many surprises that awaited me. My host mother took me shopping for winter clothes, to the supermarket, and later that night we went out for dinner. I felt like it was my first day over again in Japan. Can’t seem to understand how fast time passes by so quickly. Today, December 22, 2009, is my fourth month since I been here. Unbelievably enough it’s true. I am very grateful for everything. This is a once in a lifetime experience; therefore I take advantage of everything my host families ask me to do with them.

What I love most about Japan is that, you will never feel bored because life here is always busy. I never have time to think about anything that may bring me down, that’s a plus. I am grateful that I haven’t felt homesick at all. At times I remember the holidays in the U.S. I just live in the present and don’t look back. It’s nice how in America there is always some event going on for every holiday. For example, this year I missed out on my yearly Black Friday shopping and didn’t get to have turkey this year either. Instead, I had another day. I remember how every year I would buy everything I needed on Black Friday for Christmas and quickly filled up the Christmas tree with gifts for all of my loved ones. It sure is different here; there isn’t even a Christmas tree here or extreme commercializing for things. Good thing that the days are flying by quickly that soon I will be back in The Sunshine State.

Every day I think about how fortunate I am to be in the position I am in now. I am glad I got chosen to be here because I’m living my life and getting to know myself much better in a different perceptive. My friends here are always available to answer my questions. I have made a few, but very good ones. The Saturday before Thanksgiving Day, I cooked a Colombian meal which my first host family got to eat. The meal that I made included rice with beans, grilled chicken, soup, vegetables, and a mix salad. Too bad the ingredients aren’t the same here, but I still tried my best to make it happen. On November 30th, I went on a yacht ride to a private island with my host parents and their friends. We had a fish lunch and it was absolutely divine. The scenery was absolutely breath-taking in which we sat and ate next to the shore with a view to the orange-reddish mountains.

On December 15th, I went out to a dinner with my Rotary Club and ate traditional winter food. As always, I did my speech and had to make a little performance in front of all of the Rotarians. It’s great that lately I been speaking in front of crowds, because it helps me practice my public speaking skills. I love how every time there is an activity here, I get to speak Japanese and everyone understands even though I’m not great at it.

December has been flying by a little too quick. It’s almost the New Year, and then there will only be five months left for me on my exchange. Incredibly 33% of my exchange has passed by in a heartbeat. There are times in which I sit on my bed and stare at the wall asking myself, “How am I going to say my goodbyes to everyone?” It makes me sick to death at the moment. Regardless of how different the holidays are celebrated here, I still involve myself with everything and take part. On the 17th, for the first time I went to a Hand bell concert. They played the traditional American Christmas songs. I was called on stage to play the Hand bell. The melody was so sweet that it made me feel emotional for a couple of minutes. I closed my eyes and thought I was back home, then I opened them and realized it was another day in Japan. At the Hand bell concert, everyone dressed up with semi-formal clothes. After the concert, my host parents took me to a traditional Japanese restaurant and ate so many types of fish you could ever imagine. I notice myself addicted to Green Tea, I always need it now. I drink it at least three times a day with every meal. In America, I would always make faces at tea and say I would never drink that. It’s funny how I wouldn’t do many things before and now I do them.

For the first time in my life, I feel like a princess. I have never gotten so many presents from people I just met. That is common here within most people in Japan. On the 20th, my host parents took me to Universal Studios Japan, in Osaka, for my Christmas present. Even though they don’t celebrate Christmas here they still managed to please me by taking me to something Americanized. We left the house early Sunday morning. We took the Shinkansen which is my all times favorite. The Shinkansen is a high velocity train. It is common to take the Shinkansen when you need to get somewhere quickly or traveling far.

Today December 23, 2009, I will have a semi Americanized Christmas Party, and I will be the main chef of the evening. My host mom made a homemade cake, my host father made some rice cakes, and we will also have some Cambodian guests over. Can’t wait for later!!!

Sayonara, Mely

March 11 Journal

Konichiwa! Minna genki desu ka? Gomen nasai chotto osoi desu. Sorry everyone that I haven’t updated in so long.

Wow can’t believe how time has flown by in a heartbeat. It’s sad to say that I have less than 1/3 of my exchange left. I have been very busy lately, traveling, preparing things around the house, involved in Rotary activities, and with my personal life. In these past three months that I haven’t written a report there has been many things going on in my life. It is unbelievable to see the changes that have taken place in my life since last year. I could say that I have the biggest blessings ever.

Unbelievable as it sounds, I got the opportunity to go to Spain for a week. I remember back in November 29th, 2009, when I moved to my second host family’s home, my host mother mentioned something about going to Spain with her husband. This all happened while we were shopping for food to make dinner that night. It only took for me to say; “I wish I could go too”, then she looked at me and said, “We are going to Spain”. All I could do at that moment of shock is just stare back and say, “Ok”. Later that night, while I was having my first meal with my new host parents, my host mother decided to mention the Spain trip to my host father. As she was telling him about what she had decided to do, I just minded my own business pretending that I didn’t understand Japanese at all. My heart was having the biggest celebration ever, my stomach was filled with make-believe butterflies, my hands were sweaty, and I felt my face burning hot. He was fine with it after she told him, and then we began to celebrate with champagne.

Let me go back in time to New Years. I welcomed the New Year with my current host mother, and my Cambodian host sister. We went to a Shrine 15 minutes away by walking. At the Shrine, I prayed, meditated, ate an orange, and had a traditional New Year’s drink. The fun didn’t last for too long, by 1:00 a.m. I was already home. For the next three days, I ate the same meal for breakfast. Eating the same food three days in a row for New Year’s is traditional in Japan. I was absolutely fascinated with the idea of eating the same thing. The meal had a variety of foods such as, fish, soup, vegetables, eggs, rice cakes, beans, and for dessert sweet potatoes and fruit. Luckily enough, my host parents had a vacation for five days, so the next day we went to one of their apartments in Central Okayama, which is about one hour away by car and slept over. During our stay there, we shopped at the stores around there, and went sightseeing to new places I have never been to before. I took advantage of the opportunity took some pictures, and bought some winter clothes.

On February 18th, I went to Tokyo with my second host family. We took the famous Shinkansen (bullet train) back and forth. I did a range of things during my stay over there. On day one, immediately after arriving, we went to Tokyo’s famous Disneyland. I thought that Disney Park was very much like the one back home, so I felt like as if I was in Orlando. We enjoyed our day there, but the best was yet to come. The next day, my host parents surprised me with this bus tour all around Tokyo. On that sightseeing bus, we toured to the best places in Tokyo. That same night we went back home. Once again back to reality, a great reality.

This month I will be changing homes. I will be moving back to my first host family’s home. Things will be different from before, but I’m looking forward to enjoying my music nights with my host father. At the end I always think of everything happening for the right reason, so I smile. At times I can’t believe I’m in this position. This has been the best months of my life, thank you from the bottom of my heart to Rotary for the best of the best always.

Much love to everyone and enjoy the rest of your exchanges,

Mely

May 14 Journal

Yaho! Moshi-Moshi! Hey everyone!

Unbelievable to say that the last time I wrote was back in February. It can’t seem to cross my mind that in 20 days from today I’ll be flying back home to reality. My ten months in paradise will soon come to an end once I step on that plane. Reality will smack me in the face, when I notice reverse culture shock at home. Frankly, there aren’t words to describe everything that I’ve learned while aboard here nor how thankful I am. It will break my heart when I say my, “Sayonara, matta ne,” (Good-bye see you later/soon), but in reality I’m ready to go back home as another person.

When I think of the day I first came here, I remember a nervous, ready to explore girl, shy, outgoing, willing, and strong-minded girl which just landed from that plane on August 22, 2009. Fortunate enough, my mind was well set on the right channel and I was ready for everything that would come my way. The most embarrassing things happened to me more than once, but yet I smiled as if it was a good thing. The first time I ever freaked out was when I saw everyone eating with chopsticks, then I realized I was in an Asian country. Seriously right then I was out of place. Something else that seemed too hard to believe was the thought of every family member taking a bath in the same water. Wow! In a low toned voice with my slacking eigo-nihongo (Japanese-English) I would ask if it was alright to take a shower instead. My host parents would say yes in this surprised way. How funny that is it to remember all those times.

I’m one lucky girl. In March, I changed to my first host family again. I’ve got to admit that it sure was hard for me to say goodbye to my second host parents L Everything I did with them felt just as if I was back home. They would let me act like myself, the same way I was back home. Most of my days over there were the happiest ones I had. I would frequently sing to them in English and Spanish, then joking around they would tell me to sing in Japanese. Oh those days… J Our relationship became even closer when I had the opportunity to travel with them as far as Paris and some parts in Spain. During the time that I was there with them, I felt that this brick wall that was between them and myself suddenly felt apart. A total plus on my side because it turns out that after that trip a secure feeling grew stronger between us.

On April, weekend after weekend I went on different trips. I was so glad that I went to Nagano, this small city and attended a festival that only occurs every seven years. It was one fascinating festival which involved a couple of trees and many strong men. I did the usual sightseeing and omiyage kaimono (souvenir shopping) for the host parents back home. On Golden week, the first week in May, I went with my current host mom, sister, and brother to my host mom’s birth city, Nagoya. During my stay in Nagoya, we met up with her family and did various things. We had a barbecue the first day, sang some songs at a karaoke box, went twice to onsen (hot springs), sightseeing around, Nagoya Castle, to an amusement park, and the best of was that I spent it with them. This was my last trip here in Japan. My next one will be very soon. More to come until next time J

Ja, matta ne,

Mely yori

Megan’s Bio

Hey! I’m Megan Reuss and I am currently a senior at Lakewood Ranch High School. As I write this bio, I do not know quite what to expect in the next year but I’m looking forward to every second of it! I’ll start off by telling you about my exciting life in Lakewood Ranch. I have a rather active lifestyle, packed with running, club activities, school, hanging out with friends, spending time with family, playing soccer, attending pasta parties, participating in outdoor activities, and enjoying smoothies.

I run on my school’s varsity cross country team along with a bunch of my friends. Our team motto, “Never come to the starting line with thoughts of coming in second,” comes to mind when I think of Rotary and the wonderful opportunities it presents. As a team we obtained the district championship by a margin of two points! Just goes to show that determination and hard work can produce great results. Wellll, that and loading up with carbs on Friday nights! I also pole vault and run on varsity track and field. I recently began pole vaulting, looking for a new activity to test myself at. Turns out its really fun (despite being seconds away from falling 8 feet)! I also enjoy playing soccer although I stopped playing competitively this year to concentrate more on running. I still find time to play with some friends before/during/after running.

I am the historian of my school’s Technology Student Association (TSA) chapter. I am also a member of the National Honor Society (NHS), Technology Honor Society (THS), and Latin club. I have a sister, Wendy, who is 15 (and extremely jealous that I will be going to Sweden without her!). We have four pets; two golden retrievers (Dewie and Lily) and two ferrets (Fred and Joe). Surprisingly, the dogs are more afraid of the mischievous ferrets than the ferrets are of the dogs! I love hanging out with my family, extended and immediate. Florida has been a prime location for family vacations, doubling the chances of seeing my cousins/aunts/uncles/grandparents multiple times throughout the year. I am very thankful for all the support my parents have given me in basically every aspect of my life!

I was born in born in New York, lived in Colorado for 9 years, and have been living in Florida for almost 8 years. I’m looking forward to adding Sweden to my list of residences. I am especially anticipating the cold weather and beautiful scenery. Thanks, Rotary, for allowing me this amazing opportunity!

At the beginning of the year I wasn’t exactly sure what I would be doing after high school. I figured that I would be packing up my belongings, saying goodbye to my friends and family, and heading off to college. After completing the grueling college application process, the radiant option of Rotary Youth Exchange appeared to me as I found my way out of the haze of applications. My thoughts dwelled on the possibility of embarking on a year long experience in a completely different environment. Looking back to 2001, I recall my cousin frantically attempting to learn as much German as possible before flying off to Switzerland for her Rotary exchange. Upon her return, she was fluent in German and more thankful than ever that Rotary presented her such an amazing opportunity. I found myself filling out yet another application, only this one was to stay in high school rather than get out. Shortly after, the idea of becoming an exchange student began to shape into a reality.

When I found out I would be living to Sweden for a year, I was excited beyond belief. Everything that I had become accustomed to over the past 17 years would fade away and be replaced with the experience of a lifetime. My love for exploration will meet its ultimate match this fall, sending me headfirst into an adventure full of excitement and novelty. After reading about what a great time some current exchangers are having, I eagerly signed the outbound contract and now am preparing for orientation. So far, about 9 of my friends have booked their seats to Sweden, in none other than the extravagant and luxurious compartments my suitcases! Not quite sure how that will work out with the suitcase rule and weight limit but it’s reassuring knowing I have a supportive base of friends in the states =]

Megan’s Journals

August 26 Journal

Departure and Arrival

The beginning of a new month also became that of a new year when flight NW491 took off from Tampa International Airport at 8:15 AM. I occupied seat 18D wearing my outstanding blue Rotary blazer clad with only the RYE Florida patches.

Four days before this point, I was anxious beyond belief. My visa hadn’t arrived and I was scheduled to leave the next morning. Much to my relief the elusive visa arrived when I was supposed to take off, ironic right? Bokoff then booked my flights for August 1st, the same day most of the Denmark outbounds were leaving!

After a day with my family and a night staying up way too late with friends I realized saying goodbye was a lot harder than I imagined. With five teary-eyed friends, two speechless parents, and one confounded sister, tears began to fall as my excitement and apprehension built up. I had no idea what to expect once I passed though security and left my life in Florida behind.

All of these worries left me as I slept for nearly three hours before arriving in Detroit. After my last American lunch I found a handful of exchange students gathered together at gate A50, departure to AMSTERDAM at 4:00PM. Here we exchanged pins and shared thoughts. Before long, many others (including Juan, Caitlin, Morgan, Gabby, Sydney, and Peter from FL RYE!!) arrived. All of us were excited beyond belief and more than ready to arrive in our host countries.

The flight seemed much longer than 7 hours but eventually we arrived and unloaded from the plane while chatting and posing for our last pictures together. Customs was HECTIC. There were so many people running around and jumping into lines that it took a good ten minutes for us to find the right place. From there I had to say goodbye once again, only this time I was all smiles knowing that the next stop would be Stockholm!

My host family was waiting with a huge poster and USA flags right outside of baggage claim. From there we headed out to the infamous Red Volvo and took off for a small town right outside of Stockholm for my first fika! I have no idea why this amazing idea hasn’t made it to the United States but it has definitely become my favorite time of day. After learning some very quintessential Swedish (kaffe och kanelbulle) we piled into the ‘bil’ and traveled to the house.

Stockholm

I woke up as we pulled into the driveway. From there I moved into my new room only to pack again when I found out we were headed to Stockholm the next morning! On the two hour train ride, I found out sitting in a backwards facing seat is definitely NOT a good idea. After that unfortunate discovery, my host sisters taught me some Swedish card games where I learned that the number ‘sju’ is nearly impossible to say.

We dropped off our belongings, began to walk, stopped for an ice cream fika, and finally arrived at Gröna Lund! In a unanimous decision, my host sisters and I decided that the famed Insane was nothing in comparison to Extreme and Katapulten. We then took a ferry ride to Gamla Stad (Old Town) and saw tourist shops, the government building, and the castle (which my host family says is much ‘uglier’ than the castle in our town).

The next morning we took a boat trip to an archipelago in Stockholm. The small shops featuring local trades and the outstanding view of the Baltic Sea created a cozy atmosphere. While on Fjäderholm we ran into some fri snatching Florida natives, fiskmås! Next was Skansen, the most visited tourist destination in Sweden. Although we did not see any polar bears wandering the streets, we saw a few brown bear cubs there.

Rotary Club

I met my YEO (Britt-Marie) from the Rotary Club here in Sweden and received my first allowance as well as a Swedish flag and moose pin. We visited Rudbecksskolan and talked to the headmaster. They tried to put me in the English speaking program but I had to remind them many times that I’m in Sweden to learn Swedish. I will be in the second grade (no, not as in for seven year olds) ung foretagsamhet program.

Örebro Södra Rotary Club meetings are held every Friday at noon. I showed up in my dashing blue blazer and presented myself, in Swedish!! We then looked at a new set of apartments going up in the city and I got invited to visit Nora with Britt-Marie. We met the next week when I received the money for language camp (THANK YOU SO MUCH ROTARY!!).

We then took off for Nora, the town is known for its daily fresh made ice cream so naturally we had to try some! The smooth texture and mixture of vanilj, hasselnöt, and lingon was amazing! While Britt-Marie’s husband and I were looking over a USA road atlas, Britt-Marie whipped up some great kantarell sandwiches. During our little fika I found out that he has been to New York 11 times (9 of which were to run the New York Marathon), has a friend who biked 4000 km in 23 days, is going to bike in a 500 km race this summer, and used to be one of the top orienteerers in Sweden. Quite the cool guy!

Örebro and My New Family

The weekend was filled with parties. The first was a going away party for Karin. I met a lot of cool people (they were very impressed by the FL RYE business cards), who were more than happy to teach me some Swedish. After a late night mosquito massacre (I’m still suffering from the itchy wounds) we slept to regain energy for my host mom’s birthday party. I met a lot of the family, all of which were extremely friendly. My host cousins are especially sweet!

My host sisters (Karin-17, Eva-15, and Maria-12) and I visited the city where I saw the castle, the church, and the water tower ‘Svampen’. There is a lot of art around the town in random places (openART). A hand pointing from the moat to the castle and a monk statue sitting under a bridge were just a couple of pieces. On the bike ride back from town, there is a bicycle counter that shows how many have passed through during the day. By the time we got there, the counter was on about 4,000!

Karin’s last day at home was that of a typical exchange student: packing, weighing, unpacking, reevaluating, repacking. Eventually the suitcases made it to the car and she was off to Stockholm to meet up with the 35 other USA outbounds! We took a trip to the mall (Eva tells me it was recently renovated to look more American) and to IKEA!! About half the stuff in my room comes from IKEA as well as most of the furniture for the house. The store was huge even though it’s either the smallest (Eva’s presumption) or second smallest (Maria’s guess) IKEA in Sweden.

Orienteering

The whole family does this sport called orienteering where you run through the woods with a map and compass trying to find various checkpoints. On my first orienteering expedition my host dad and I ran the same course but he only helped me through the first two points. For the last four I was on my own. After lots of confusion while walking, navigating, and battling it out with the trees, I finished the 2.6 km course in 64:35!! Amazing, I know. After the outing we went home and ate these Swedish yellow mushrooms (kantarell) that my host sisters picked in the woods while orienteering. They were delicious!

The Orienteering Club had their annual Cross Country Championship!! This year yielded the largest turnout. Despite the rain it ended up being really fun! We also participated in another orienteering event called Golden Weekend. I was on my own for this course and I have to admit I was kind of nervous I would get lost and have to rough it in the woods for the rest of my life. Luckily I ran a course that had a lot of paths so it was relatively easy to find all of the checkpoints. Although between the last two I had no idea where I was which was when a photographer snapped a shot of the confused me! I came in first in ‘Öppet 1’ (granted all of my competitors were probably ages 3 and under)!! Eva and Maria placed in their age groups and got some pretty schnazzy prizes! OH! I experienced the much renowned Swedish nudity. Let’s just say the showers at orienteering events are very open!

I moved up to Öppet 2 in Orienteering, competition: 12 year olds!! I got lost A LOT this time but luckily some friendly Swedes helped me to get on the right path. Turns out the L signs are only for the little kids. My host parents also got lost but Maria maintained her leader status!

Other Happenings

On the weekend we drove to Filipstad to visit an exchange student in my district. The town was very small but had a huge hill (45 degrees straight up according to Nick’s host brother, Johan) that yielded a great view of the area. We walked around the town and somehow managed to get lost for three hours. I took my first bus ride after this and no I didn’t get lost (possibly because Resecentrum was the last stop)!

The first day of school was great! I didn’t have to show up until 13:00 (1 o’clock pm) so I had a nice lunch in town with my host dad and his fellow workers. School is very different here, the schedule has random 3 hour breaks, with different start and finish times everyday, kids smoke on campus between classes, and lunch and bus transportation is free for everyone! After school, my host mom and I went to an Örebro Fotboll Match! ‘VI VANN!!!’ 2-0 with goals in the first and last 3 minutes.

The people who created IKEA are very clever, you cannot skip anything in that store. It is made in a path so you MUST view everything. We had a nice outdoor lunch afterwards. Afterwards I went to VOX Festivalen with a few friends. We listened to some bands then went to an apartment on the other side of town (they taught me how to navigate the city bus system) where we played some Monopol (Swedish Monopoly)!

While in Sweden I have learned how to cook!! At least with apples. For the past week we’ve been having apples in just about every meal. Apple crumb cake, apples with sausage, chicken wok and apples, apples with ice cream, pretty much anything you can imagine. I successfully made apple pie (my host mom helped me with the Swedish directions) and ugnspannkaka med äpplen! I made that all on my own, with the Swedish cookbook!

Observations

American Hamburger sauce, pretty sure we don’t have it in the USA!

You walk around the grocery store with a scanner, put everything in bags then check out without having to remove everything from the cart (yes this means you could steal stuff but they check your bag occasionally)

November 30 Journal

It’s been quite a while since my last journal but there’s just so much going on its hard to take the time to sit down and write about it all! No school today so now’s the perfect time. Plus, it’s been about three months since my last journal.

Where to start…

School! Since last time I wrote, I’ve switched programs. The one I was in wasn’t working out; all the kids smoked and didn’t seem interested in the whole exchange student thing. Now I’m in the Specialidrott Program and it’s going great! There are only 18 students in the class and we all play sports. In Swedish schools, you stay with the same group of people for all of your classes. The classes we take are science, math, and sport based. When we don’t have kemi, physik, bilogi, or calculus we’re training for our ‘special sport’. Wednesdays and Fridays are by far my favorite days, soccer trainings in the mornings followed by only two classes in the afternoon. Tuesdays and Thursdays are rough, class from 8 am till 5 pm. It’s already dark out by the time I bike home! English is definitely my easiest class with Samhällskunskap being the hardest. The course name itself is a tongue twister! The biggest problem with school is staying awake but thankfully a few of my guy friends with their antics ensure that I don’t doze off too often.

Host Families! After höstlov (fall break) I switched to a new host family! It was a major surprise that my counselor found another one for me and I’m really thankful she did! Being able to see how another family functions has definitely broadened my views on the Swedish people as a whole. My new home is right near the university and about twice as close to town. My oldest host brother is thinking about going on exchange next year so the family decided to host me to let him see how the life of an exchange student is! I have two host brothers (Viktor 16 and Anton 14), a host sister (Elin, who just turned 11), and a host dog (Lipton, like the tea). My new family got back from the USA (New York City) the day before I moved in, pretty crazy right?

Rotary Weekends! About, ohhh let’s see, two-and-a-half months ago all of the exchange students in 2340 and 2370 (and one from Umeå) met up for language camp in Eskilstuna. For the week I stayed with Kelsey’s (from Washington state, not D.C.) host family in a town about 30 minutes southeast of Eskilstuna called Ärla. We had class everyday from 8 until about 2 at a folkhögskolan (adult high school) in town followed by an afternoon event (bowling, the Zoo, BBQ, the water park, movies, Frisbee, etc.). I don’t think the 16 of us would be able to survive the lessons without a minimum of two fikas a day! Everyday we went to different sponsor Rotary Club lunches. They were all hosted at the same place which meant you guessed it, the same food for 4 days in a row. All of us introduced ourselves with the signature ‘Hej! Jag heter…’ speech that we worked so diligently on perfecting during class. Luckily we only messed on occasionally on the ‘Nu bor jag…’ (it’s not ‘Nu jag bor’) part. We all learned a lot and had a great time getting to know each other.

Our next meeting was at the Stresund Folkhögskolan in Trosa, located right on the shores of the Baltic Sea. We slept in a classroom and prepared for the District Conference that would take place a few weeks later. My group did a skit on the life of an exchange student in Sweden. Scenes included: silent bus rides, awkward showering, and the infamous fika. We had a fun time watching Kyle (from California), Nathan and Maxence (our Frenchies) attempting to canoe in the sea. They eventually ended up tipping and swimming the sinking canoe back to the shore. Did I mention this is in Sweden, not Florida, where the water is actually cold? After a tour of a Swedish Rescue Boat, Nathan (the Canadian one) and I discovered the most amazing drink ever, espressochoco. Being good-natured, we decided to share this discovery with the others which led to the depletion of the ingredients in the machine; in other words, no more espressochoco.

On our free time we got to wander around the premises when we discovered that some old Swedish buildings have ladders built into the outer walls! We quickly found out that ladders, despite their intended purpose, are not meant to be climbed.

To wrap up the weekend we saw an act about violence at football (soccer) games. Turns out hooligans are a big deal in Sweden. Many teens are sent to centers to help them quit the football gangs they are a part of. A few weeks later we met up in Strängnäs for the 2370 (my adoptive district) District Conference. While there we got to chill in a Swedish fire station until the actual district conference started. Fire stations actually do have the poles you slide down on! All of us gladly took advantage of being given the opportunity to test it. Later we got to take a ride in a fire truck and go up 30 meters (about 100 ft for all you Americans) in a sky lift that gave an awesome view of the town. Before our party at the station we toured the famous Strängnäs Cathedral that was frequented by the kings themselves back in the day.

The next day we woke up early and headed off to the conference. There we met many Rotarians from 2370, some from Russia, a few from other parts of Scandinavia, and even one from England! Sensing that our interest in the Swedish speeches was decreasing, our kind counselor for the weekend released us for fika. We met back up with the Rotarians for a tour of Strängnäs and then it was time for us to head home.

The 2340 (my actual district) District Conference was held in Strömsholm, a little town outside of Västerås. After listening to a few speeches, we headed off to Rödridhuset for lunch. While there we saw some horses jump extreme heights, I’m talking taller than me. We also got a tour of the renowned Animal Hospital that the area is known for. Later on in the evening we attended the Rotary dinner. We gave our Rotary speeches and chatted it up with the cheery Rotarians. I got a few invites to local Rotary meetings and met a past RYE student who spent a year in Tampa! Gunnar (RYE District Chair) supplied us with some delicious chocolate, which in turn left us staying up too late. Well that, and the fact that the hostel was haunted. Mailis (from Estonia) didn’t sleep at all, bathroom lights turned off sporadically, and strange noises were heard.

The next day was spent in meetings. Surprisingly, our attention was captured throughout the morning with speeches about Rotaract and the presentation of photos of Västerås by a National Geographic Photographer.

Last weekend was Stockholmhelg! About thirty of the exchange students from around the area met up at the big circle in the middle of Centralstation where we then split off and toured the city. We learned a little history, saw some sights, and even experienced a riot. The afternoon was supposed to be spent ice-skating, but the outdoor rink had melted away before we could! Instead we went bowling and I’m proud to report I haven’t improved in the least bit over the past few months.

We stayed the night at a hostel a little northwest of Centrum. I can now say not all hostels are like that in the movie Hostel. Strangers who approach you aren’t all serial murderers; in fact they have quite the stories! The next morning we made our way to Skansen where we spotted wolves, perused the Christmas market, and danced to Svensk Jusmusik around a Christmas tree. I can’t wait for the next Rotary Weekend; I don’t think I would be able to survive the entire year without my fellow exchangers!

Travels! I spend many of my weekends meeting up with my exchange friends throughout Sweden. With Sweden’s wonderful public transportation at my fingertips, I can’t afford not to be traveling constantly! Two of the past few weekends, I headed off to Nyköping for camping. Our first outing was near Lucia’s (from Argentina) host family’s house in Ripsa (which spells Paris with the letters jumbled!), a really small town about 30 minutes north of Nyköping. Grace (from Australia) and I trekked through the woods and met up with the other 3 in the dark of the night, right after a fika with Lucia’s host mom of course! We spent the night roasting chamallows (not marshmallows) over the fire and catching up on everything. The next day we took a hike and went out on the lake in an abandoned canoe. Then it started raining so we built an awesome lean-to to sleep in for the night. Luckily we turned out to be pretty good architects (mostly because we had Nathan, the Canadian Scout), only a few pieces of the second fort (the first one kind of collapsed on Grace) fell off during the night. Zach (Washington, state as well) and Lucia say the lean-to is still standing today!

Our next weekend was in Trosa, a town just northeast of Nyköping. Nathan’s host dad works at a folkhögskolan (the one we stayed at a few weeks before) with lots of camping sites. We found a nice teepee, fireplace and all, and claimed it as our home for the weekend. Before we arrived, Mayuka (from Japan) had an incident with woodcutting that led Zach to ban her from using knives. Fortunately we did not witness this nearly tragic event. We spent most of the weekend inside the warmth of the teepee roasting köttbullar, boiling top ramen, and feasting on falukorv/knäckebröd/ketchup sandwiches. When we ventured outside, we ended up watching an intense tree climbing competition. All three contenders dominated every tree we chose for them. By the end of an active weekend, I truly felt bad for anyone who would have to sit next to me on the bus/train. Weeks later and my winter jacket still smells of campfire and korv.

Over höstlov I visited Alina (from Arizona, who got her visa three weeks late!) in Södertälje. We toured the town, which is located right outside of Stockholm. The first thing I noticed was the McDonald’s that overlooks the port of the town. Then next day we traveled to Stockholm and met up with Kelsey. We had a quality day of touristing in Gamla Stan and shopping on Drottninggatan. We even saw a few Halloween decorations!

A few days later I headed off to Lund to visit Brandon (fellow Floridian)! After the 4 hour train ride, we met up and rode bikes back to his host house. Lund is a University town and because of that it has millions of bikes, probably more than I have ever seen in my life all gathered together in one place. After staying up way too late catching up on everything, we met up with Morgane (from France) at the train station. Next thing we knew we were on our way to Copenhagen! None of us had been to Denmark before so when we got there we took a few turns and ended up on some street with a bunch of shops fitting under a category that I should probably not mention. Luckily we made our way to Strøge and did some tourist shopping. We checked with the clerk at some store about which landmarks we should visit. He pointed us in the direction of the Little Mermaid. We managed to find the statue, which turned out to be much smaller than imagined but striking nonetheless! On the way there we saw a bunch of sweet buildings including Christiansborg Palace (the place on the Danish Butter Cookies tin) and the Copenhagen Opera House. By 17:00 it was dark out so we made our way to the train station and headed to back to Sweden.

It was the last weekend of höstlov, which meant all the Sunday train tickets were sold out so I headed to Nyköping to meet up with Lucia. We had a nice fika, kidnapped Zach, and went off to Eskilstuna to meet up with the other exchange students for Halloween.

A few weekends ago, Kelsey and Alina came to Örebro. We toured around the city, made a trip to IKEA (where we purchased awesome blankets for a mere 13 kr each!), and visited Svampen (Örebro’s legendary mushroom watertower). My host mom took us to the local women soccer team’s last game of the season. We got some schnazzy volleyball (yes, we were at a football match) supporter pins with our tickets to add to the Rotary blazers. KIF (Örebro’s team) played Linköping (the winners of the Swedish League) and won 2-0!

Last weekend, my host family took me to another sporting event, a Swedish Basketball game! It was more like a high school basketball game in the sense that you could sit anywhere you want and the players were constantly adjusting their uniforms (pointed out by my host mom). Of course, we had a fika at halftime. Unfortunately, Örebro Eco Basket lost the game that was supposed to be an easy win! The next morning my sister had a track meet in Västerås. My host mom and I toured the town between events. The coolest thing was Anundshög, the Viking burial mounds. From the top of the mound, you could see the outline of ships marked out by large stones. We had lunch in the city’s skyscraper on the 23rd floor with a view of the lake Mälaren. The sun finally decided to show itself so it was quite a pleasant day!

One of my friends was scheduled to be flown back to the USA (no, not due to misbehavior or anything of the sort) so we decided to meet up with and tour Stockholm together, hitting up some of the famous museums that are free to students while there. After a striking display of washing machines in the Nordiska Museet, we went to see The Vasa. The story behind the ship is quite spectacular so here comes a little history lesson. Built in the early 1600s, Vasa was meant to be a Swedish warship. Unfortunately the top-heavy ship sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (no clue how far that is but I’m sure my water crazed fam back in FL does!). After the valuable cannons were rescued, the ship was forgotten. That is until the late 1950s when it was discovered outside of the Stockholm harbor. The Vasa was salvaged nearly fully intact and is now located in the Vasa Museum.

Later on in the week Kelsey and I travelled to Nyköping for a farewell fika with the exchange students there. We had a grand day chasing busses, feeding ducks, and having too many fikas. The Nyköpingers, being the amazing people they are, bought a Swedish flag that we all signed and presented to Kelsey as a going away gift. Losing one of the group is tough but I guess that’s part of exchange! In a few months all of the oldies will be back in the Southern hemisphere and a few more after that and the rest of us will be back on native soil. The time crunch somehow makes all the highs and lows seem worth it, reminding us that once we leave things will never be the same. This is in no way a negative, quite the opposite! An infinite amount of thanks to Rotary and all that it stands for. I’m extremely proud to call myself an exchange student, even more so to say that it was compliments of Rotary.

Last week I traveled to Nyköping for an international Thanksgiving. We spent Thursday night at an ishockey match in Södertälje. The crowd was MUCH larger the other sports games I’ve been to in Sweden. The result of the fast paced game was in favor of the home team over MODO. We arrived back in Nyköping and began the long walk back to the Centrum. Mayuka ended up falling asleep in midwalk. Nathan being the champ that he is carried her for the 35+ min walk. The next morning she only remembered falling asleep at the bus stop. Guess that’s what happens when you study too much!

The next morning we planned our Thanksgiving menu and headed toward Coop to purchase all the materials. We managed to keep the price under 480 kr and it only cost us 180 kr thanks to Grace’s awesome gift card. After finding a house to use and lugging the many groceries back, we slaved away in the kitchen for hours snacking on anything edible, singing to Swedish tunes, and attempting to modify English measurements into metric. We ended up deciding a coffee cup was a suitable replacement for the Cup measurement. Everything turned out exquisitely and we feasted for hours, challenging each other to shovel down bite after bite. It was quite the experience for us North Americans to share with people from Argentina, Australia, France, Japan, and Sweden. It made me realize how extremely thankful I am for everything in my life. We joked about looking back on this day years later and reminiscing, all knowing that we would constantly be remembering our exchange year for decades to come.

Transportation! Over the few months that I’ve been here I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with the Swedish Transportation System, specifically with Länsträfiken (the buses) and SJ (the trains). Student bus cards get deactivated randomly which leads the cardholder having to bike to Wadköping in search of a replacement. I have learned the hard way that train doors do not stop, like elevators do, when people are in the midst of boarding. Bus drivers do not wait for you to say goodbye to friends, inevitably leaving you looking like an idiot when you have to chase the train, knock on the doors, and return to the stop after the failed attempt. Train tickets cost literally twice as much if you wake up late and have to buy them on the train instead of a hundred meters away at the station. Buses no longer accept cash as payment, bus cards only. But luckily: bike rides lead to discovering new places, the train doors are no match for me (I still have no idea how I managed to squeeze on), Swedish friends offer to bike you to the next stop (after laughing at you for missing the bus), train mishaps teach excellent lessons, and exchange students pay for your bus ticket in return for treating to fika. I love transportation here and I have no idea how Anni (with my family) is surviving life in the USA.

Rotary! Many Fridays I’m able to attend the Rotary lunch after training at Behrn Arena (Astroturf field that the Örebro SK and KIF play on). Luckily my English teacher doesn’t mind if I miss half a class. Last week I gave a spur of the minute speech about my höstlov completely in Swedish! Each time I go, I find myself meeting more Rotarians and being offered more opportunities. I’m extremely thankful for Rotary for allowing me this amazing opportunity. I cannot express my gratitude enough. Being here has already taught me so much and has influenced beyond belief. Again, tack så mycket Rotary!

December 29 Journal

Ohhh Sverige! I’ve recently come to realize how much I love being here. This country is absolutely amazing. From the speedy transportation to the general cleanliness of every town, I don’t think Rotary could have selected a better place for me.

Örebro is a great place to be, I can get anywhere I need to be within half an hour. Despite the fact that winter has come, I can still ride my bike everywhere. It’s quite the challenge to get to school when the sidewalks are covered with snow but surprisingly I’ve managed to get by! When the winter does manage to pull one over on me, I can’t help but laugh when I realize that instead of acquiring a nasty scrape, I’ve instead been covered in a layer of snow!

I’m starting to become adjusted to, and quite fond of, the sun’s lack of presence. The best part of a sunrise at 9:00 and sunset at 15:00 is the atmosphere that it creates, perfect for a cozy fika! My host dad recently commented on the ominous rain, the most there’s been in years. Luckily the weather seems to taken a turn for the better creating a landscape covered in a dazzling blanket of white.

The Swedes were right when they said the snow makes everything brighter and when they said the dark red color of the berries would bring a cold, snowy winter. The sun’s been peeking though the cloud cover quite often and when it does, the snow sparkles like there’s no tomorrow.

The atmosphere here is full of the Christmas spirit. Everything from the lights that illuminate the town, luciatågar, the ‘O Helga Natt’ concert to the jolly Rotarians, julgodis, advent festivities, julklappar shopping, and avslutning have certainly put me into a cheery mood! Although my ‘real’ family’s not here with me, I’ve found little time to mull over that fact. My time with the Domberg’s has been wonderful and I couldn’t have asked for a better family to spend the holidays with. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, god jul och gott nytt år!

February 28 Journal

Halfway… I can’t believe my exchange has reached this point! It was only a year ago that I was wishing time would speed up and now it seems to be going by all too quickly. The end of 2009 was a bit rocky. I had a bit of an issue with my host family. Not much positive to say, only that all families aren’t cut out to host exchange students. 2010 – 2011 outbounds, if you feel uncomfortable with your living arrangements, make sure to contact your counselor.

Despite that small speed bump, things are going extremely well now. I changed families in January and things couldn’t be better! Recently we’ve been caught up watching OS on TV. Sweden’s cross country ski team is doing amazingly well. My host parents love going and I’ve tagged along a few times. With all the snow Sweden’s been getting this winter, conditions are perfect on the local tracks.

Although cross country skiing is fun, I’ve really enjoyed getting back into downhill skiing! A few of my exchange friends and I took a trip to visit my aunt’s chalet in the mountains. We took a train to the plane then hopped on a trolley to catch another train and boarded yet another train to get to a taxi. We finally reached our destination after traveling though various towns in Sweden, Switzerland, and finally France.

We got into town pretty late with the snow falling like crazy so it wasn’t until the next morning that our vision was set into the right focus. We had made it to Megève safe and sound and were staying in a two bedroom/ two bathroom/ full kitchen apartment right at the foot of the mountain. We thought life couldn’t get any better until we reached the top of the mountain and the clouds peeled away leaving us with the astonishing view of the Alps.

My second ski trip was up to Sälen for a day with my school. Definitely something we don’t get to do in Florida! Number three is coming up this week when I take my second sportlov (sport vacation) and head off to Sälen again with Alina’s host family.

My official sportlov was spent last week in Oslo with 4 other exchange students. Nathan, from Canada, contacted the Rotary there who was glad to help us out. We ended up staying with a Rotarian who lived right outside of the city while another Rotarian family took us out to dinner and taught us how to ‘snakker norsk’. Norwegian is surprisingly similar to Swedish, we were able to communicate with practically no language barrier! While in Oslo we visited almost every museum (Norway Resistance, FRAM, Norwegian Maritime, National Gallery, Army, Akershus Fortress, etc.) possible in the short time we were there. Yet another amazing trip thanks to Rotary!!

August 2010

It’s been quite some time since my last journal so I figured the easiest way to write this journal would be by looking through my calendar and summing things up. I’ve had amazing time over the past few months so I hope my entry helps to convey everything! I apologize for the length of the journal and for the time it has taken me to gather everything into one place in advance, hope you enjoy!

March 3 – 7, Sportlov in Sälen with Alina (inbound from Arizona) and her host family. It was Alina’s second time skiing so I decided to try my feet (and hands, they spent quite some time bracing my falls) at snowboarding! We stuck to the green slopes for the first day to brush up on the basics. On day two we were hitting the blues with Alina’s host parents. By the last day we were flying down reds, pros at the t-bar lifts, and even managed to survive a run in with some deep snow. At the end of each day we all had a great time singing along with the afterski bands.

March 13 – 19, Åre Ski Camp with 40 inbounds. The night of March 13 the night train to Järpen took off from Stockholm after about two hours of delay (one of the downsides to taking trains in the winter). About 10 exchange students were onboard. Only a few were cunning enough to books sleeper cars while the rest of us decided we would rather save kroner and ‘sleep’ in seats. Despite the difference in preferences, we all arrived full of excitement, ready for a week of fun. We were staying right outside of Åre in a house full of bunk beds. We did some outdoor teambuilding exercises on the first night, we were all determined to finish first in order to get inside and warm up! The next day we hit the slopes. After getting all the equipment sorted out we were all divided into groups. We had a variety of skill levels ranging from beginning skiers to competitive boarders. Our instructors were people our age who were in the midst of obtaining their instructor certification. It was great getting having them to show us all the slopes, we would’ve been lost without them! I spent the first two days skiing the reds and blacks with the more elite crowd. We had a blast flying down the pists, especially through the woods where a few people had some unfortunate encounters with the trees. Claire (from New York) and I learned how to do tandem 360 swing spins! I later switched to snowboarding to relieve my legs from ski boot pains! We headed to the top peak of the resort on the third day, out last day with our instructors. The ride up was amazing. After passing a certain point, everything was whited out including the air around us. Once getting off the gondola we could barely see the people in front of us! As apposed to my first time down the trail on skis, boarding was a bit more of a thrill. Two other boarders (Deni from Australia and Zoe from South Africa) and I were stressing to keep up with the beginner skiiers. By the last day we were all a bit exhausted and most of our time was spent in the yoghurt and müesli hut, how could we pass it up when it was tempting us at the end of each run? While we weren’t skiing we spent some time in Sauna World, touring around icy waterfalls, and of course attending a Rotary meeting!

March 22 – 26, flight back home to Florida to attend my grandpa’s funeral. After hearing about my grandpa’s death, I was in a mess of tears. The next morning I was boarding a plane headed to Florida. I would like to give a huge thank you to Rotary for making this possible. After 36 hours of travel, I was where I needed to be. All of my cousins, uncles, and aunts flew in as soon as they got the news. 48 hours later and I was on a 24 hour trip back to Sweden with my mom, dad, and sister.

March 26 – April 9, the Reuss family invades Sweden. After such a devastating trip back to the states, it was a relief to have my family with me for the two following weeks. Upon our arrival to Arlanda, a group of my friends (The Stockholmers – Alina, Jono and Jess from Australia, and Marian from Mexico) met up with us outside the terminal. After getting moved into our hotel (the Grand Hotel, only five star hotel in Sweden and only hotel in Stockholm with a room for four) we met up with the Stockholmers again for a classy dinner at Max, home of Sverige’s bästa hamburgare! The next stop was Tampere, Finland, Anni Haaika’s hometown! It was great to actually meet the exchange student who had been living with my family when I was back in Florida. In all honesty, I can say she is definitely part of our family. We headed down to Helsinki for a day and toured around before heading off on our cruise back to Sweden. This cruise wasn’t heading off to tropical destinations but instead through the iceberg filled waters of the Baltic Sea. My host dad, Bosse, met up with us at the dock and took us back to Örebro. My family finally got to see the house I had been living in for the past 3 months! We kicked off their stay with the traditional international bowling match. The Swedes prevailed again! We toured around town and were headed off to the winter house in Sälen the next morning for påsklov (Easter vacation). All was going well until the kids car (with my host siblings Rickard and Karin, Wendy and I being the passengers) suffered a minor breakdown. Karin, Wendy, and I joined the moms while we left the guys to sort out the trouble. Right as it started to rain, they got the engine running again and arrived to the house minutes after the inaugural first night pizza did. The next morning we hit the slopes. My dad, Wendy, and I on boards while the rest of the crew were on skis. We all met up for lunch where we had the biggest purchase of the day, food for 13! At night we took a snowmobile trip up to the top restaurant for a fondue dinner. After catching up on some sleep, we went on a snowmobile tour the next afternoon, which was breathtaking (especially with my 16 year old sister driving)! The highlight of the day was Easter dinner, a really big deal here in Sweden. The table was filled with traditional Swedish food, 10 different sorts of sill (herring), boiled eggs decorated American style, påskmust for the kids, and schnapps for the adults. Jonas (my host sister Hannah’s husband) taught us a traditional Finnish drinking song which was very long and complicated. My family was off to Oslo, Norway the day after. With our Oslo Passes in hand we visited Holmenkollen, the Fram Museum, Kontiki Museum, the town hall, Nobel Peace Prize Museum, etc. We headed out of Norway to meet up with my counselor and her daughter in Göteborg. My family is quite into sailing so we visited the harbour the next day. Madeline (My counselor’s daughter) is also quite into sailing and knew of a few of the sailors who has been in Florida’s big winter competition a few months back. We went to the Slottsskugan later on to meet up with a few of my exchange friends who lived in the area. That night we were headed back to Örebro. We spent the last night cooking dinner for my second and third host families. We took the 04:52 train to Arlanda for my family’s early flight the next morning. A big thanks to my host families, counselor, and Rotary for everything!

April 17 – 23, trip to Kiruna with 40 exchange students. Stevie (New Zealand) and I travelled up to Kiruna on the 18 hour night train (with beds this time) the night before the camp started. We met up with Alex (New Zealand), David, and Crystal (Australia) the next morning who had to change their travel plans at the last minute do to the Iceland Volcanic Ash inhibiting their scheduled flight. We spend the night in the hostel, which was quite creepy when not filled with heaps of exchange students. We kept busy by singing Manboy everywhere we went. The next morning we met up with all the other exchange students and headed off on our tour of Kiruna. The second and third year tourism classes at the gymnasium in Kiruna set up the trip. The first thing they took us to do was to see the Ice Hotel. We were told that it had closed a few days before but once we got there they told us that it was cold enough to actually go in! We got a little debriefing on where they get the ice from and all the countries they ship it to. It was pretty interesting to learn about the ice harvesting! They usually start in November once the ice is thick enough to slice into blocks. In the few months the water isn’t frozen over, you can actually drink straight from the Torne River. The next day they brought us on a bus tour. There’s this road that connects Sweden and Norway on which the speed limit is actually listed as the slowest you can go due to the abundance of avalanches in the area. On our way to Narvik, we visited a few notable ski resorts. With the perfect blend of snow and sun the views were absolutely amazing! On the next day, we were split into two groups. Our first activity was to talk to an English class. It was really cool to interact with the natives and learn about how life for a teen is in the city with no sun in the winter and nothing but it in the summer! A few of the members of the class were Sami, one of the girls spends her summers herding and tagging reindeer. Life in the Arctic Circle sounds quite exciting! The second half of the day we were out on a snowmobile tour. Our little wagon was a bit shaky going over all the bumps but it was a sweet ride! Once we got out to the lake (still frozen over), we split into groups of four for a little tournament. We had to hand drill a hole in the ice for ice fishing, run through cones with drunk goggles, walk on planks as a team, and light a fire in the snow. After we finished we had hotdogs around the fire. On our way back to town, we ended up getting stuck going up a hill! We all got out and pushed our snowmobile and wagon until we made it up. On one of the nights we had dinner at the school with all the students who planned our trip. We got to hear a native Sami ‘joik’ and we followed suit by singing our respective national anthems. Later we participated in a huge scavenger hunt around the school. Deni, Alex, Jess (all Australians), Stevie, and I ended up coming in first! We got these sweet I <3 Kiruna beanies which fit perfectly with the Destination Kiruna t-shirts we got before we left. The train that about 15 exchange students and I were going on wasn’t leaving until later on so the class took us out to LKAB, Kiruna’s iron ore mine. The mine is becoming a huge deal in Kiruna. The land is beginning to shift from all the rock being removed and replaced. The city has to change locations within the next two years. The ride down to the mines was through a pitch black tunnel, no lights. When we got into the visitor mine, we all had to put on helmets just in case of any loose rocks falling. The tour was really interesting, we got to see the dynamite they use to release the iron ore and how the loose rock is moved out after. Our train was delayed about two hours so we had some quality chill time in the train station before we finally took off on the 16 hour ride to Stockholm. We piled the 15 of us into a 6 person sleeper room to chat a bit before heading off to sleep.

April 24, The Last Bounce. My host brother had bought tickets for my host older host sister to see Bounce in their final performance and luckily I got to tag along! Bounce is a Swedish dance troupe who is known worldwide. All of their acts were amazing! They had invited a bunch of other renowned dance troupes to participate in their final showing.

April 28 – May 4, trip with Sofi (from Mexico) to visit a family friend in Italy. Sofi and I headed off on our flight to Milan, Italy in great excitement. We didn’t realize quite how amazing the views of would be until we woke up from a two hour nap and looked out the window. The landscape was draped with the Alps, most of which were still sporting quite a bit of snow. We arrived and were picked up by Joanne, a good friend of my grandparents. We would be staying in Verbania (located on Lake Maggorie) with her. We were completely in awe once we got to the house. Right off the veranda was a breathtaking view of the lake and surrounding mountains. We spent our first day visiting the Borromeo Islands. The gardens and mansions covering the islands were amazing. We took the following day to take a bucket ride up to the top of a mountain. We went to the town market to see what local life was like the next morning. One of the sweetest parts of the trip was driving to Switzerland. We got to see the dam that was part of the James Bond movie ‘Golden Eye’. The tourist attraction there was a bungy (sp?) jump but we doubted we’d see it in action due to the rain and strong winds although there was a sign saying jumping would still be going on later in the day! We drove on and walked over a few bridges gaping the distance over the raging river. When we got back to the dam, we saw a few more people out. Surely enough we saw two people jump in the pouring rain! Once back in Italy we stopped at the local Italian Pizzeria. The pizza was outstanding as was all of the other meals Joanne treated us to! It was really cool to see how quickly she switched languages between her Italian, German, and American friends.

May 8 – 9, Rotary Districts 2340 and 2350 orientation weekend. We spent the weekend at Norberg catching up with all the other inbounds and rotex while getting to know the new outbounds. Being around so many excited faces reminded me of the RYE Florida orientation about a year earlier. All of the outbounds grilled us about our years abroad while we gladly answered questions. The first night we all played an assortment of get-to-know-you games. The Swedes have a reputation for being shy and reserved so the rotex thought it would be suiting to get the outbounds a bit out of their comfort zones. We started off with a hug circle, the rotex being the final judge of the quality. After, we played a card game where you had to press a card to your teammate with the called out body part. We finished off the night with a slow dance competition. By the end of the weekend its safe to say we all became pretty close and it was a bummer (as always) to have to leave.

May 17, Kolmården. My class took a study trip to Kolmården, one of Sweden’s best zoos for the day to study the apes and chimpanzees for biology. We spent most of the time observing and recording the habits of various chimpanzees. Later on in the week we would compile our studies into a lab report but for the time remaining at the zoo we got to look at the tigers, see a dolphin show, and trek around before it was time to head home.

May 19, birthday and Vårruset. The day was off to a great start before it even began. The day before my class found out we had no lessons! Vad skönt att ha sovmorgon på födelsedagen! My host family surprised me before they left for work with the Sandberg’s Swedish birthday tradition. They came into my room singing ‘Ja må hon leva’ with a pile of presents and a wonderful breakfast tray. Later on I attended a Rotary meeting with my host dad. The topic of the day was the Swedish coach of the United States Women’s soccer team. Afterwards I met up with my host mom to participate in Vårruset, a women’s 5k that takes place every spring in cities all around Sweden. There were a bunch of guys doing stretching exercises for us up on pedestals and even a few who snuck into the race (with wigs and skirts on of course!). At the end of the race, everyone received medals. After meeting up with my host mom, we had a nice team picnic with her fellow workers. Later that day, my counselor surprised us with a visit right as we were about to have cake (I learned how to make kladdkaka earlier in the week!). All in all, it was a great 19th!

May 21 – 23, Rotary District 2370 orientation weekend. Another inbound/outbounds weekend! This time it was being held in Stensund, a nice town located on the Baltic. The same place that we had a Rotary weekend back in the fall! It was great to catch up with all the exchange students again, this weekend we spent most of our time giving speeches (in Swedish) about our years on exchange. After the outbounds went through a few debriefings we had a grill evening out by the water. Most of the outbounds were going to places that we were from! One of the girls is even going to Florida! It’s amazing how small Rotary makes the world seem.

May 26, Rotary Lunch with GSE from Alabama. Classes have been winding down so I’ve had a lot of free time to attend Rotary meetings. This time around the topic was Alabama. A group of 5 adults had been traveling around Sweden and staying with Rotary members through Group Study Exchange. It was really cool to get to meet some Americans after being in Sweden for such a long time! I chatted with a tv reporter for most of the time. It was quite interesting to hear her take on the Swedish culture after being in the country for about a month. She was surprised I thought it was so warm considering she was from a similar climate in the states. All month she had been borrowing winter jackets from the host families!

May 28 – 30, Rotary kayaking weekend. Friday afternoon I took off to Hudiksvall to meet up with about 10 other exchange students. We would be spending the weekend sea kayaking off the east coast of Sweden! The first night we all got together for a grill party and learned the basics of kayaking. Everyone was terrified that they would flip due to the choppy water and our inexperienced nature. The next day we drove out to the drop point with all of our recently fitted kayaks, skirts, jackets, and paddles. On the beach we packed all of our belongings into the compartments and were off into the blue! We paddled for about 3 hours before coming to our first campsite. There we set up everything for the night and took a tour of the old sea port town. The town had recently become unusable as a port due to the rising of the land. We had a great time touring around and having competitions on the beach. When it finally got dark (the sun never sets in Swedish summer) my Canadian friend Julia and I introduced all the Australians and Swedes to the wonder of the s’more. The next morning we took a short paddle around to another port before heading back to Hudiksvall to catch our trains.

May 31 – June 3, klass avslutning. The week began with a class camping trip. We all met after school with gear for the night in tow and began the 2 svensk mil (2 swedish miles – 20 kilometer – 12 american miles) bike ride to our class handler’s summer house. Once there (it was an exhausting trip! Sweden has hills unlike Florida..) we had a fika before taking use of all tennis and basketball courts. After everyone was tuckered out, we grilled (grilling is HUGE in the Swedish summer) and headed down to the lake. About half of us slept down in a hut (where I learned the great sport of maskkrig) near the lake while the other half chose to sleep in tents. We headed back to Örebro the next morning to get back in time for the class competition in Stadsparken. A few friends came over before we went out to the park where we competed in a variety of games. On the second, we had our klass avslutning. Everyone met up at the building across from the school where all the class handlers talked about the year. Later some students (later joined by the teachers) played and sang a few songs about summer. As we were leaving the building to go up to the classroom, the graduating class bombarded us with water balloons!! When we finally made it across the street my class met up in our room for a farewell party. We all talked about the year and our plans for the summer and watched a slideshow one of our handlers put together for us. After, we all went to Pizza Planet for a farewell lunch. It was great getting to know NV2E, they took great care of me!

June 4 – 6, camping in Oxelösund. After watching the studenten (the Swedish version of graduation) celebration in my town, I headed off to Nyköping for a final camping trip. I’ve really grown to love Allemansrätt, the Swedish law which permits campers to stay one night in any location (even on someone’s property) as long as you leave the site in the condition you found it in. This time we would be camping out in Oxelösund, right on the Baltic Sea. After some travel complications I arrived at the location a car ride, three trains, a taxi, a bus trip, and about six hours later. We (Canadian and Franch Nathans, Phil, Zach, and Mayuka) spent the first night catching up as always. The next morning we picked up materials for s’morewiches and a few other campers (Deni, Jess, and Zoe). We spent the rest of the day swimming in the Baltic and collecting firewood before heading home the next afternoon.

June 9 – 11, Alina’s visit to Örebro. After almost a year of visiting Alina in Stockholm we finally found a date that worked out for her to visit Örebro. We spent a deal of time touring around the city. We visited one of my favorite places, my running route along the Svartån (black river) towards Mälaren (third largest lake in Sweden). The scenery is beautiful and the temperature seems to be perfect almost every outing. The next day we spent some time out in the park before meeting up with one my friends who had been on exchange in Minnesota the year before. It was really cool getting her take on strange American traditions and everything. After dropping Alina off at the train station I had my final Rotary speech. It was really nice to be able to share my whole year with a club who had done so much to accommodate me. The whole speech was in Swedish and besides a few tears the whole thing went really well!

June 12, grillkväll. As said before, grilling is quite a big deal in the summer. My host parents had a grill evening to attend so my host sister (Karin, she was on exchange in New Zealand a few years back) took me to a grill party that she had been invited to. We went to the Linus’ (Karin’s boyfriend) family’s house before heading to the their family friends house down the road. One of the guys at the party lives in Tampa, Florida on and off so it was nice to talk to someone who knew the same places I had grown up around! Even though it was raining we had a great time and some amazing food!

June 14 – 17, Latvia trip. On the fourteenth I headed to Nyköping where I would be staying the night at Nathan’s before we embarked on our trip to Riga, Latvia. The night was spent looking up Latvian phrases and landmarks in Riga. We got to Nyköping’s Airport bright and early the next morning to meet up with Zach and then headed off to Riga on our hour long Ryan Air flight (tickets cost about 30 USD round trip!!). We arrived in Latvia at the same hour we left Sweden (hour time difference) and were picked up by Emils, our Latvian Rotary contact (president of Riga Rotaract). We were dropped off at our hostel in the middle of city and given some time to clean up before heading into town for a Rotary meeting. We went on a tour of a new building before going to dinner under some massive umbrellas. The next day we went on a tour of the town. The country used to be under control of Russia so there are many citizens who speak both Latvian and Russian. Riga is claimed to be the home of the first Christmas tree. In the center square there is a Christmas tree shaped glass piece of art that counts down the days until the tree is lit. Later on we went on a boat tour on the river Riga is situated on. The next morning we had lunch with a Rotary club in a hotel restaurant that overlooked the city. One of the most prominent buildings was that of Swedbank, a Swedish bank. After meeting some guests of the Rotary club from Georgia, we headed off to the airport and waved farewell to our great host and the city of Riga.

June 19, Kungliga Bröloppet. The wedding between the crown princess of Sweden, Victoria, and Daniel Westling took place in Stockholm. It had been advertised like crazy months prior to the wedding. At every tourist shop you could find memorabilia with the faces of Victoria and Daniel printed upon them. With a month to go until the royal wedding it seemed as though almost every show on television was about the royal family or past royal weddings. Needless to say, the royal wedding was a big deal in Sweden. I met up with about 20 exchange friends to participate in the festivities. We watched the procession via big screen in Kungsträdgården, one of the main plazas in Stockholm.

June 20 – 23, Brandon’s visit to Örebro. Right after getting back from the royal wedding, Brandon came to stay in Örebro for a few days! It’s always nice meeting up with a fellow Floridian. We toured around Örebro for a day then Brandon and I went to Eskilstuna to say goodbye to Sofi, our friend from Mexico who went to France with us earlier in the year. Before that I had visited Deni in Uppsala, a big university town in Sweden. We met up with Phil from Australia there and saw Uppsala’s Kyrkan before spending the rest of the day eating strawberries in the park (traditional Swedish summer activity, summer fika).

June 24 – 29, Summerstugan and Midsommar. Deni and Alex came down to celebrate Midsommar with my host family and I. Before we headed off to the sommarstugan we spent some time touring Örebro (I’ve gotten quite good at tours by now!), bowling in my basement, and watching the World Cup. We spent part of Midsommar in Wadköping, Örebro’s old town, dancing around a maypole and singing Swedish songs before heading off to Askersund to my host family’s summer house. From there we headed directly over my host family’s friend’s summer house. After a match or two of bocce ball Deni, Alex, and I went looking for flowers for our midsommar wreathes with my host mom. By the time the flowers were gathered and on our heads we were looking quite Swedish!! We became even more Swedish by the end of the night after trying sill (Swedish herring) and listening to my host parents and company sing traditional Swedish snaps songs. By the time we got home we were almost too tired to look for 7 different sorts of flowers to put under our pillows. Doing so is supposed to make you dream about your future husband! We went out on the boat the next day and took a swim in the lake. The rest of the time we just relaxed in the sun and had a good time. The only stressful thing was that I hadn’t packed for EuroTour and I would be arriving back in Örebro the night before heading off to begin the tour!!

June 30 – July 18, EuroTour!! Our trip would consist of 68 exchange students (all on exchange in Sweden) touring around 7 countries over the course of 17 days. Needless to say it was the trip of a lifetime, I’m so glad I decided to go!! We started off in Malmö on June 30th. After a night of no sleep at the hotel, we embarked on our wonderful double decker bus after packing the trailer full of our suitcases. The first stop would be on the ferry to Germany after driving over/under the famous Öresundsbron into Denmark. We were all bustling with excitement once we realized that EuroTour had officially begun. After a short bus tour of Berlin, we had a traditional German dinner of sausages and sauerkraut. We took another bus tour on Day 2 with a few added in stops. First up was Checkpoint Charlie and shortly after we were at the Berlin Wall. On our free time, a group of other exchange students and I invested in a day long metro pass which we used to get to Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. After dinner we met up with one of Alex’s German friends who was on exchange in Australia who took us to an outdoor club on the riverside to go dancing. The next day was spent driving to Krakow, Poland. Once we arrived there we had a traditional Jewish dinner. The next day we took a walking tour of the city on which we toured the Old City and saw Wawel Castel. We ended at the Main Marketplace where a group of fellow Americans and I had lunch at the Hard Rock Café considering it was the Fourth of July! Later on we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau which was a really heavy thing to experience. It was a really touching experience to be able to see where such a major part of the Holocaust had taken place. On day five we started the drive to the Czech Republic. We would be spending the next few days in Prague. We took a walking tour of the city on the hill of Hradcany where we saw a number of memorable sites. At night we went on a dinner cruise where we passed under the Charles Bridge, the same one we walked over earlier in the day. By day seven we were in Austria. Our first stop was at Mozart’s birthplace and the filming location of the Sound of Music, Salzburg! We took a quick tour around the city before heading off to Zell am See. The next morning we began our hike up into the Alps. It took about 4 hours but we finally made it and I must say the views were outstanding and the air was extremely fresh. When we finally got back into town we all took a refreshing jump into the lake, one of the cleanest in Europe. On day eight we arrived in Lido di Jesolo after a day of driving. Our hostel was located only a few block from the beach so naturally the first thing we did was go for a swim! Our time in the beach town was spent swimming, sunning, eating gelato, indulging in Italian pizza, and strolling the streets. We took a day trip to Venice on day ten. The city was very tourist oriented but nonetheless it was still great to see such a famous city! Rotary took us on a gondola ride through the water streets of the city and we spent our free time wandering the small passageways. We spent the night of day twelve in a random city in France, we couldn’t make it all the way to Paris in one fell swoop. The next morning we had arrived in the city of lights and it couldn’t have been more amazing! We toured around and got our bearings the first night in order to be able to find our way around the city on the Fourteenth of July, more commonly known as Bastille Day. We got up early to see the parade, luckily it rained which cleared out a bit of the crowd and gave us better views of the parade down Champs-Elysees, Paris’ main street. The next morning two friends and I took off to climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. The weather was perfect and the views were amazing! After that I headed over to Roland Garrows with a tennis enthusiast to see where the French Open is played. We went into the Louvre right before we had to head back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for dinner. Later on we saw Paris by night off the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Day sixteen we left France and headed into Brussels. It was a really neat city to see even though we only had a few hours. We saw Manneken Pis while enjoying a Belgian waffle before getting back onto the bus and driving to Germany. Our final night together as the EuroTour group was spent having a party in the hotel. We gave gifts to our wonderful Rotary counselors, had an awards ceremony for memorable moments along the trip, and finished the night off by dancing and signing flags. It didn’t set in that the tour was actually over until we were back in Sweden on July 17th. Once we unloaded from the bus and collected our luggage for the last time tears started flowing like there was no tomorrow. It would be the last time most of us would see each other. The trip was more amazing that I could have though possible and I’ve become so close to so many great people.

Now, I am sitting here writing this journal reflecting on all the great times I’ve had in Sweden and around Europe. It was everything I could have asked for and more. Thank you Rotary, being an exchange student has taught me much more than I could have ever imagined.

Tack för allt Rotary, Megan

Michael A’s Bio

Hello, I really don’t know what to put in these things but I guess I’ll start with my interests and work from there. I enjoy flight and all of its physics and experiences. Trust me, when you hear the propeller and actually see it while you are still flying, there is no feeling you can compare it to. That is because when the prop is slow enough to be seen the plane is going to slow down and you will think you’re going to crash–Hence no feeling to compare it to. When you first take off and look down on the world it is from a completely new perspective, which is what I like to see. I could say that is one reason I wanted to do this program because I enjoy seeing things from one point of view and then seeing the exact opposite side and how it can be not so different. Well it looks like the views are going to be warped when I see what a different country thinks of my own.

I am involved in many activities such as hockey, civil air patrol, and my school’s green team. I enjoy competition but sometimes I just want to help out. I am outgoing and like challenges, so one more reason for Rotary.

Well, I guess that’s all I can think of so there I am in a nutshell.

Michael A’s Journals

September 15 Journal

Hmmmm….let’s see where do I start…. On the plane ride here I met some other Rotary students and had a very fun flight. My arrival was greeted by my host father, mother, counselor and club president.

I was completely in awe when I first arrived as I looked out at the landscape as the train glided across the scenery. This led to the town of Urawa (a.k.a. “The Labyrinth of Death”) This town is filled with narrow streets that are the combined width of a car and a bicycle; thus they are very dangerous (abunai). While my host father traversed these roads, I learned how polite the Japanese people are, especially with cars; in fact, they were more than willing to go to the side so that the other person may go…totally different from the US. I got home to find out that my host father is an Abacus teacher and that they live right above their school. Lots of more things were a bit of a culture shock but the list is too long to create.

After spending a about 2 weeks in Japan, Rotary had exhausted me to the brink of despair as each meeting sounded like an endless flow of mixed consonant and vowel pairs and the occasional understood word. It gave me such headaches when I tried to break down the sentences in my mind.

My days at school were very enjoyable after I made a few friends….

October 30 Journal

This month has been very interesting indeed. After hitting culture shock a little late, I began to spiral into a depression that I felt that I could not find the end of. All of my efforts felt inefficient and insufficient. I felt like I was never going to find the light at the end of the tunnel; thus I studied hard with tears flowing down my face often and the thought of “I will not be humiliated again…I will prove that I can survive in the polar opposite of everything I once knew…”

With that ordeal completed I have begun to thrive in Japan and am adapting well. I am learning the language at a good pace and can carry on a decent conversation as long as it does not become too complicated. I am trying new foods that I have not even looked at more than once before. For example, I recently have tried nato, a product of tofu beans that smells awful and is very stringy. I horribly dislike it but my host father eats it a lot so I try it in order to fit in a little better.

On that note, I have gotten on very good terms with my host family and will regret leaving in a few weeks. I sometimes understand my friends at school because students speak a very confusing form of Japanese but the parts I do understand usually put a smile on my face. I am doing more and more sightseeing and learning many more Japanese customs. I plan to bring back the skills I learn here and apply them when I return.

March 28 Journal

It was the beginning of February and I found myself once again in the Rotary Moving Van this time travelling to my FIFTH Host Family. I feel so lucky with my Host Family assignments. I have had the chance to stay with more families than most Exchange Students. This has given me the chance to live not only with more Host Mothers and Fathers, but even better, so many varied sisters and brothers! I have been able to help tutor my younger sister in her English courses, and I have been able to join brothers that are closer to my age doing “guy” activities like exercise training in the park. So as the Rotary van rumbled through the narrow streets of Urawa once again, I leaned my head against the car door wondering what my new family would be like. Their house sat in a crowded cul-de-sac, and seemed typical of other homes in Urawa, the northern suburb of Tokyo in which I reside. I had to grapple with my gigantic duffle bags as approached my new family, but I’m used to it by now.

During the past month, I stayed with the Tsubaroka host family, consisting of an older sister and brother as well as mom and dad. Luckily, they lived about 10 minutes by bike from Urawa Jitsugo High School. Therefore, I could then sleep in just a little longer. The thought of resting my head on the comfortable pillow for just a little longer made me perk up with joy. When I moved to my new home, my new host father greeted and invited me along with the Rotary member who was assisting me with the move into his wide one story home. The balding, gray haired, middle aged man directs us to sit down on the wide brown leather couch and gives a benevolent smile. We are offered hot Japanese tea (green tea) which naturally, to respect his hospitality, we accepted. After the customary size conversation, I got to meet my new host sister and she showed me up to my new room on the second floor. After I laid down my massive pile of luggage on the hard wood floors gently shimmering from the eastern window’s sunlight I turned to my average height short haired sister and said “Arigatou.” Two hours passed and steaming yakiniku was sitting on the table. What a warm welcome!

The next day my host mother went with me by bike to my school to show me the way. It was surprisingly straight forward, only about three turns total. “There is no way I can get lost”, I thought. Ironically, on my way back home, I took a wrong turn and my host mother just laughed at my false overconfidence and lack of directional abilities. After returning home, I finished unpacking and organizing my room. three hours passed and it was time for dinner. I ate quickly and thanked them for the meal with the customary “Gochiso sama deshita.” The next day was a school day so I made sure to get to bed as soon as I could.

Everyday life hardly changed. I still went to school the usual five to six days a week. I still got to talk to my friends every morning at school and everyday still had Tamada-kun’s daily antics and monologues. I still had the irksome alarm clock that I had to hit the snooze button on about three to four times. I still rushed out the door in the morning, hopped on the bicycle, and pedaled like burning rubber to make it five minutes before the seemingly omnipresent bell sounded off. I still dusted up my shoes everyday during lunch-break while I played soccer with my friends. However, some new things spiced up everyday life. Because I then lived closer to the school, and in a new direction, those friends that I played soccer with live in the same direction. Luckily, I could then enjoy the experience of having someone to wait for and talk to on the road home until we parted our separate ways. I found a convenient store on the route that had a special treat waiting: Takoyaki! (Note: Takoyaki is a traditional snack type finger food that is comprised of octopus encased in dough that is fried into a ball shape) This was the only convenient store I had found that sells it for cheap or even at all. Lucky!

On the weekends I either called up my friends to meet, had some sort of event planned by Rotary or my host family, or just relaxed at home. A friend that I never had much a chance to spend time with because of exams and living too far away took his exam around the time of my move. Fortunately, he passed and was accepted into into the college that he wanted to go to. And even more fortunate, my new home was very close to where he lived. We often went to each other’s house to play video games or sports. Two months ago, I played soccer (badly) with him and his friends, but unfortunately, they had to stop one day for reasons I still do not understand…

As for the planned events, various enjoyable activities took place. While I anxiously anticipated the eventful ski trip, my host mother took me along to give me a look at the enjoyable places within range. Like Rotary, a organization called “Hippo” focused on extending cultures across the globe. They also sponsored exchange students to travel abroad as cultural ambassadors. It was fantastic to discover that Rotary is not alone in its style of exchanging.

Additionally, my host mother allowed me to accompany her to the gym in which the family has membership. By pulling some strings, I was allowed participate for one day. My first experience in a Japanese gym was that of confusion from the complicated system and series of corridors in the building. However, after a little exercise around the place, my cloudy vision became much clearer to the point where I can explain how it worked in a basic terms. From the front desk on, the men and women split up into adjacent halls that lead into locker rooms. These locker rooms were extremely clean, had a wall of mirrors above sinks for hygienic purposes, and used a card to lock the door in place so that the actual lock can close. Near the next hall, a pair of vending machines that could provide sports drinks, water, and other random supplies that were needed in case someone forgot them. As expected of Japanese vendors, they are overpriced compared to American standards. From there, the hall takes a T shape where continuing leads to the onsen public baths and a left corner lead to the actual gym facility. I participated in both an aerobics class and an abs strengthening class. I completed both with relative ease and sometimes even went beyond the pace everyone was sweating at. From there I retorted to my host mother in a jokingly arrogant fashion that it was “baby training” and that I was only sweating from the hotness of the room. She just laughed at what she thought was simply bluffing with ridiculous statements. She had sharp eyes. From there, the “warm up” was over and I moved onto the machines doing treadmills, bench pressing, step machines, and other various workout machines. When we left the gym, I thanked her for her effort and for the opportunity with a “Arigatou Gozaimasu!”

My personal favorite excursion was a trip to the Edo (Old Tokyo) Museum. There I learned about old technologies, cultures and customs, historic events such as The Great Edo Fire, Architectural layouts and strategies and such a wealth of information. My only regret was that I wished my guide spoke better English so that I could have asked the harder questions because my Japanese was enough for the simple explanations he gave. Nonetheless, I thanked him for his efforts and his time.

From the earlier mentioned “Hippo” organization, we met up with two previous exchange students after the museum. Both around twenty, Hitomi, a cute short girl with long brown hair wore layers of a dress, pants underneath and a jacket (interesting Japanese current style) and the other, Akira, a boy around my height who had dyed his hair as well, but to an orange-like color, wore red pants and a simple black T-shirt with English transcribed, illegible to the owner. (Japanese styles are very heavy on English T-shirts even though no one knows what it means. A cultural equivalence in America would be someone having a tattoo or shirt that has Asian characters transcribed upon its face.) We stopped by a Sumo themed restaurant that actually had a Sumo ring at its core! I ordered traditional cold Soba noodles and sushi while everyone else got hot pots. My host mother takes a picture of me and Akira about to face off in the ring with our fists pounded into the hard sand. “Itai!” We exclaimed in pain and blew on our knuckles simultaneously. That sand left a mark! After the restaurant, we said to the “tenin” (person working at the establishment at the front) “Gochisosama Deshita” (thank you for the meal!). After heading back into the train station, my host mother gave us some money to go to the Tokyo game center and explained that she was home early. She told us to have a good time and we thank her for her kindness.

After having an interesting conversation with Akira about what animated shows we like, the train screeched to a halt one last time and the doors slung into the sides following the loud ding. (Cartoons are very serious in Japan. There are some for children; however, many are for mature audiences as they contain themes of corruption, violence, and malicious intent. They are very enjoyable!) Upon exiting the the station, a large colorful building came into view. The Tokyo Game Center! After walking into the bright yellow elevator, we took our time on an assortment of floors with the various activities including: bowling, batting cages, soccer goal scoring contests, ping pong, boxing arcade games, darts, and tennis. What a full day!

Finally the long awaited day arrived, the Rotary planned Ski Trip! After I got up earlier than usual, I finished my breakfast quickly, made sure my bags were packed, headed over to the location where we were to meet and get on the bus. All my friends were waiting on the bus and after a quick head count, we were off to Nagano ken and on towards snow. After a four hour bus ride, the sky began to become gray and the ground white. While grinding up the winding ice covered road, the bus made its way up the hill and to our lodge. My roommate named Djordy, the only other guy currently an inbound, and I high-fived before exiting the bus. I slung my single messenger bag over my shoulder while he grappled onto his huge suitcase and we headed over the lodge. Meanwhile, I could not calm down or stop exclaiming that there is actually this much snow. Everyone was surprised at first but then remembered the fact that I am from Florida, which I explained is ensnared in an eternal summer. The man at the front desk handed us clear plastic bags that contained our ski jacket, pants, gloves and other necessary items that we requested. We headed up to our room and got ready to start skiing and after setting down our belongings. After we rushed downstairs to where our equipment was waiting, the instructor showed the beginners how to put on the gear while the advanced people raced each other to be the first one out. One of the Rotarians took a snapshot of our group on the mountain and off we went!

After I slid down the white mountain with the Canadian exchange students and a couple of Rotarians and Rot-ex, I felt the wind blowing in my face, its howl calmed me as the white landscape rushed by until suddenly, SLAM! I realized that I forgot how to stop and crashed into the snow. Djordy shouted, “Mike, go to school!” However, my pride forced me to refuse that suggestion and we jumped on the ski lift. After we jumped off the floating bench and crossed the bold black line, I struggled to keep control over my movements. That is when a Rotex beckoned me over to the starter hill to get some “warm up” practice. This being just the break I was looking for and a chance to remember the movements while still being able to bluff about my skills, I eagerly agreed and headed down the mountain with him. Carefully watching his movements on his snowboard, I begin to recall the skills required to maneuver around the mountain. At the bottom, he said he was going ahead to the bigger mountain. Reluctantly, I followed him and try to force myself to get back to the skills I once had about a year and a half ago from a Park City, Utah vacation. We met up with the two Canadian exchange students: Gabrielle, a girl with long red-orange hair and the aforementioned Djordy whom has blond hair and blue eyes like mine. After we proceeded to the back of the mountain, we all leaned to the edge of the medium level mountain, pushed off the brink of the mountain and start to fly down. However, I could not handle the steepness at first and inched my way down as flashes of various colors from skilled skiers rushed in and out of my peripheral vision. After a shameful decent, I surprisingly find some of the members still waiting for me. After once again being told to attend school and refusing, I promised to stay on the simple mountain. From there, I trained myself all day to be able to handle the steepness little by little. At the end of the day, my feet hurt and I was tired, but made great progress. The Rotex that I made the promise to says that I can head over to the next mountain.

The next day I bumped my practice up to another level by heading to other sides of the mountain to the more advanced hills. I finally got weaving down and was mastering the medium level hills. In the middle of the day I met some interesting people on the peculiar slopes that intertwined with each other while growing greater in steepness and speed. By random chance, I was seated on the lift next to these two Japanese girls with an approximate age gap of four years. After practicing my Japanese conversational skills a little bit, I almost fell off the lift when I heard one girl say in English, “Are you OK?” In contrast to most Japanese people who learn English in school and forget it after their test, this girl spoke without a terribly thick accent or bad pronunciation. Talking a little more, I found out that she was an exchange student to Australia. (Wow, yet another exchange program is sponsoring students to travel around the world in search of geographical knowledge and cultural understanding. As my memory is being fuzzy, I believe that the name was “tiger” or some other predatory cat.) We skied the same slope a couple more times until I meet her parents. To my even stronger surprise, her parents spoke even better English. They revealed that they have traveled to America many times and asked me where I am from. Using a hybrid of Japanese and English, I told them everything about Florida such as being able to see the rocket launch from my house, beautiful beaches, my three hour proximity to Disney World, what other theme parks exist besides the former, and general American/Floridian life. They were very impressed; in fact, they decided to go to Florida for their next vacation, and not just for Disney World! When we I got back to the lodge, I met up with some other outbounds, ran into a random guy who asks us about Rotary, and I took the lead and told him what a priceless experience this is and how much we have gained (all in Japanese!). Cultural Ambassador Mission: Success!

That night, while Djordy and I watched the winter Olympics and laughed about how much hype shuffle-boarding on ice was getting, Go, a Rotex, knocked on our door and told us that there was going to be a party within two hours downstairs. Waiting for us, was a colorful array of treats and snacks and every Rotarian wrapped in a blanket with legs under a table across the room. After I lost at a silly guessing game, I was first to guzzle a soda down in one gulp (“iki”). Ouch, that burned! Everyone claps, laughs and we play more random Japanese party games. Go then tells us there is a special festival to welcome the new season. Two Rotex girls dressed up in pure red and pure green jumpsuits with tiger skin underwear on the outside. We were handed sheets with a song wrote in Hiragana to commemorate the occasion. It went something like this:

Onii no pantsu wa ii pantsu, tsuyoii zo, Onii no pantsu wa ii pantsu, tsuyoii zo

Tora no….

Go nen…. (translated from characters for legible purposes)

Ju nen….

Onii-san mo, Obaa-san mo, Anata mo, Watashi mo, Mina ga hako wo hako wo Onii no pantsu

(Basically, it was a silly children’s song rooted in old culture about Demons being very strong and that their strength came from Tiger skin underwear. However, it was very amusing to all of us and we even sang variations to pass the time later.) We did not realize that they left as we were having fun chatting and singing. Suddenly the lights went out and the girls came running in with old demon masks and same color batons and start chasing us. Earlier we were given beans to throw in defense the same amount as our age. Launching the beans and getting chased around provided a very good source of cultural education and amusement.

The last day I was able to keep up with everyone else. Ironically, then Gabrielle and Djordy wanted to try snowboarding. “Fantastic, my determination goes to waste as my goal vanishes into thin air,” I thought. “However, they are my friends and I will support them,” I decided. Blowing past my expectations, the duo gained the ability to snowboard medium level mountains in less than an hour. While they practiced, a Rotarian dragged me and a Rotex girl to a rather challenging mountain for some fun. I was filled with great pride as I wasn’t eating their dust completely, but more having a nice breeze from the weaving motion in front of me. The wind roared in my ears, the skis hissed as they sailed through the white tundra, my heart raced with excitement as I gained more and more speed, weaving shorter and shorter patterns until the mountain levels out and a harmony of kicked snow bursts into the sky and forms a small crystalline rainbow in front of the white shining sun. This is what I practiced so hard for!

After tearing through the slopes one last time, we head back into the lodge to pack up our belongings, bring down our rental gear back to the front desk and assemble together for one large and loud, “Arigatou Gozaimasu!” We spend the next four hours on the bus singing songs from karaoke, the previous night’s “Onii no pantsu”, and just enjoying a jolly good time.

These thirty sunrises and sunsets gave me great memories to share in the future as well as great opportunities to talk about my culture and widen my view of the world. I am very grateful to Rotary and my host family who gave me these chances. After saying good bye to the Tsubaroka household, a man from the Minami Urawa Rotary Club takes me to my his home for my next home-stay. The future will hold even more opportunities and experiences. I cannot wait!

May 18 Journal

After my stay with the non-Rotary family of Tsubaroka-san, a familiar man drove into the driveway and helped me load in my bags. I remember him from the Minami Urawa Rotary Club, yet we never talked very much before. After a brief drive we arrive at the home of my next host family: Kobayashi-san. After helping me with my bags and giving me a brief conversation, I find out, and a little late I might add, that he is my new host father. I tell him “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” (the standard greeting for the start of something) and he goes downstairs to his work in the office. I talk to my new host family for a short while and from there proceed to help my new host sister with her English homework. From there I settled down in my new home and unpacked my belongings until my host mother called me down for dinner. If I recall, it was homemade curry rice, which is one of my favorite foods. After dinner, I hopped into the “ofuro,” which is the term to refer to both the shower and the heated bath. An interesting cultural fact about the actual bath is that everyone in the house uses the same water, because usually special powder is mixed in to aid relaxation and general health. Therefore, it is imperative that you thoroughly clean yourself by means of showering before entering the “ofuro.”

I stayed with the Kobayashi family for about a month and a half. I had various experiences as well as many lessons learned. From the strict table behavior during “gohan,” (meal time) I have gained a rather refined Japanese etiquette to use at will. However, luckily I have not just been transformed into a manner robot out of fear, for I have acquired a personal balance that I have sought out in the past. This is one way that living in Japan has allowed me to mature towards the well rounded adult I dreamed of as a child. In terms of other growth, my Japanese has become very fluent, as I can just speak what is on my mind at the time, a feat I could never have dreamed of as the confused foreigner seven months ago. When I just carry on a conversation in Japanese with my Japanese friends or family, I feel great pride in myself and have a generally great time doing so. In addition to both of these milestones, my friends who usually have no time because of studying were able to break the bindings of their overworking schedule and show me interesting places all over Saitama district. Thus, I learned even more about the culture, local logic, and feelings of Japanese people.

In terms of what I have done to encourage exchange students of the future to choose the land of the rising sun as their destination for cultural fusion, let me name a few… Along with my host sister and a few of her friends, I made my way through the interconnected train system and into Tokyo Disney Sea. As everyone is familiar back home with Disney style parks, the same lifelike detail infused with the soul of what it represents brings warm, almost magical feeling when roaming the grounds. However, as I found out, the experience depends on who you spend it with as well as if you buy a fast pass or not. Without even a days rest, I spent the following day with my counselor’s family at Disney Land. We roared through the tunnels of thunder mountain, echoed through the void of space mountain while screaming excitedly, and crashed into the waters of splash mountain. A couple of days later a Rotary member name Hashimoto-san calls me over to watch a baseball game in Tokyo. The players scrambled around for the dead center balls while the crowd roared with half fury and half excitement. Peering into the strategies of each player as well as the coaches, the game burst with life as everyone tried to read the pitcher’s next move. However, in contrast to American “big baseball”, which encourages players to just blow the ball into the stands at supersonic speeds, Japanese style is “little baseball,” which relies on the small, less risky plays to keep the team moving as a whole instead of just a inner rivalry of who can hit the homer first. Rather refreshing, I might say.

The middle age man sitting next to me, a fan of the home team Giants, started up a conversation on a misplay that cost them the game. From there we proceeded into more personal conversations and I once again found a chance to spread my culture and experiences, thus fulfilling my duty as an exchange student. We exchange business cards (a very big thing in Japan) and go our separate ways feeling as if we learned just a little bit more today, another refreshing experience.

The first time was so enjoyable, I found myself pulled into the stadium again the next week, however, this time with the exchange student from Brazil: Jessica. There isn’t much baseball in Brazil as soccer thoroughly dominates the minds of the South Americans. Therefore this was a new view for as the one explaining all the rules and why it is interesting. Hashimoto-san used her endless connections to get us perfect seats to catch fly balls as well as getting us into the pre-game practice at ground level. Even though I was unable to convince Jessica of the wonders of baseball, everyone had a good time with getting autographs signed in ways that don’t even resemble letters of any known alphabet or pictographs known to top rated archeologists, watching batters and pitchers in a “shoubu” (duel), or the anticipation of what we would win in the raffle.

To continue this sports rampage, I get invited yet again to a sports game, however this time I find myself in a elongated stadium with fake grass and goalposts. The local Omiya team, whose mascot was something in between a badger, ferret, chipmunk, and a squirrel, was dressed in under-armor style orange and black uniforms that resembled a tiger, even though they were represented by the ambiguous rodent. The home team did an extraordinary job in the beginning of the game, but fell short as they expended all of their energy during that time. Even though they lost I had a fun time watching the match when the cheers roared from end to end of the stadium. The opposite team’s fans even cheered for their opponents in good sport. This is really unique to Japanese culture.

During the time the Sakura petals were falling I returned back to school to make new friends in a new class and finally get my classes switched to normal. After making some new friends, we headed out to Kita Urawa, where a nice cheap Karaoke place was. For 3 hours we sang along with our favorite songs and I even was able to sing in Japanese a few times. However, a few times I had some trouble with the Kanji. In fact, karaoke has become a very large part of my social life, and is also a very useful tool in social establishment, language practice, as well as spreading culture. For example, when I watched the Sakura trees in the park, I met a group of college students, numbering around 20, and chatted with them as well as played some silly party/picnic games that were originally designed for children. A few of these games are the Japanese version of: red rover, red light green light, and tag. One of the game’s Japanese name was “Daruma san ga koronda” (the daruma has fallen), a game where the person who is it, “onii,” calls out at any speed they choose “Da-ru-ma-san-ga-ko-ron-da” and everyone else runs toward that person. If you are still moving when the onii finishes the phrase, you are out. It may be rather childish, but it was a rather good learning experience culture-wise. The little things like this make me satisfied that I was chosen to go to the land of busy cities and lustrous pink petaled trees.

Morgan’s Bio

Hej! Jeg hedder Morgan Milhollin!

According to WikiAnswers, I just said “Hello! My name is Morgan Milhollin” in Danish. Yes, I know, you’re all very impressed with my skills. I am 15 years old, a sophomore at Bartram Trail High School, and I will be spending my junior year in Denmark! I am a lucky outbound who got one of their first choices, although I know that I would be happy anywhere. I have to say that I couldn’t be more excited about Denmark; I absolutely adore the cold (I’m sure that sounds strange coming from a Floridian).

I live in a town just south of Jacksonville called Fruit Cove with my dad, mom, and older brother. My oldest sister lives in West Palm Beach, while my other sister goes to UCF. I must admit that I am a proud Jaguars fan. I love to attend games and scream at the blind referees. At school I am the historian of the French Club and a member of the Teenage Republicans. After school I enjoy dancing, reading, repeatedly watching The Office, driving to Sonic with the greatest friends in the world, attempting to become a track star, and flexing my amateur photography skills.

When I first heard about the Rotary Exchange Program, I never even thought about applying. I figured it would be an automatic “no” from the parentals and completely out of reach for me. However, after attending a meeting, I knew I wanted to apply. Considering my dream is to travel around the world for National Geographic, this was a perfect way to begin my future career.

At 15 years old, I can’t say that I fully know myself yet, considering I have lived in the same house in the same neighborhood with the same neighbors for 13 years. I have been attending school with the same kids since kindergarten (I’ve even had the same lunch lady). I believe that to truly find yourself (as cliché as that may sound) you have to venture away from everything you’ve ever known and try something new. Even though I know that I will miss my friends and my family more than I could imagine, I know 100% that this trip is completely worth it.

 Morgan’s Journals

August 9 Journal

Hej alle!

I have been in Denmark for one week; it has felt like an eternity and it has felt like a brief second, all at the same time. It’s gorgeous here, and I still haven’t gotten over the view. My city, Kolding, is situated on the Kolding Fjord, and it’s spectacular. Across the fjord all you see is the old-fashioned homes scattered across the hill, and it looks nothing like America. I don’t think I have seen one piece of scenery that resembles the United States, and I really enjoy that. Also, my city has a castle. A CASTLE! That excited me to no end.

I suppose I should start at the beginning, in the airport. I will admit that I cried when I said goodbye. More like wept, actually. However, after getting to Detroit, I was fine. Although, as Caitlin already informed you, on the flight to Amsterdam we were stuck with a crying, kicking baby behind us, therefore we got zero sleep. Arriving in Amsterdam was great though, mostly because I had never been out of the country before. I almost died of happiness when the customs agent stamped my passport.

I can’t really remember anything interesting about my next two flights, all I remember is being tired. Unfortunately, when I arrived to Billund Airport in Denmark, the Rotarian that picked me up informed me that we were going straight from the Airport to Legoland (the amusement park made completely out of Legos). Of course, I wasn’t about to complain. Oh no! I am a Rotary exchange student. I was taught to adapt to any situation. But I will admit, I really did not want to go to Legoland. I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, and I was forced to march around a theme park for 4 more. I got through it, though. I am still alive.

Anyways, I will move on to happier things. This past week I have been living with my host counselor, and today is my first day with my host family. I love them already! They are really nice people, and I honestly am just relieved to be out of my counselor’s house. I detest living out of a suitcase. My host family consists of the parents, a 17-year-old son, and a 14-year-old daughter. They also have a 16-year-old son, but he is on exchange in Brazil. And I can’t forget to mention the dog, Zojka. I should probably move on to talking about the food. I love every piece of food here! The “Rotary 15” is definitely going to catch up with me fast. Even though I have only been here a week, I will try to make a list of some of the differences in Denmark:

Danes eat bread with everything. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you want a snack, you eat bread. But the bread is delicious, so I don’t mind.

Danes also put anything and everything on their bread. Chocolate, cheese, liverpaste…

Danes do not have air conditioning. They open their doors and windows instead.

You do not acknowledge the person walking past you. If you smile or wave they will stare at you like you are crazy.

Drivers will stop for pedestrians, but they will not stop for other drivers.

People actually obey the traffic laws.

Drinks don’t come with ice.

Everyone here smokes (which I found strange, considering that they are so environmentally friendly)

Every house either looks like it was built in the 1800’s, or it looks like it’s from the future. It makes for very interesting juxtaposition.

Having a Hyggeligt day = sitting around with friends or family, eating and having a cozy good time. Hyggeligt is a wonderful thing.

September 17 Journal

Hej alle sammen!

So, I have been in Denmark for one month and 16 days. This past month and 16 days have been incredible, terrifying, exhilarating, heartbreaking, and heartwarming. The 2nd week I was here was one of the hardest weeks I had ever had. That was when it really set in. That was when I realized that I wouldn’t see my family or friends for a whole year. I realized that I would have to forget everything I am used to, and that I wouldn’t see Florida until the summer of 2010. No matter what anyone says, it never really hits you until you get here. And it hit me like a big yellow school bus.

Luckily, I am past that now. After that awful week, things improved tremendously. The next week was IntroCamp (A.K.A. the best week of my life). IntroCamp was when all of the 150+ inbounds in Denmark met for a week of Danish lessons, day trips, and all around bonding experiences. The first day there I met my new best friends, Kayla and Lily – both from New York. I also met so many other people, from all over the World: Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, etc… In between Danish lessons we went to the city Viborg, and went in a really old, gorgeous church. We also explored around Århus (the second biggest city in Denmark), going to museums and shopping. I made so many new friends that week; I don’t even want to think about next summer, when I have to say goodbye. Oh, and I failed to mention that before going to the IntroCamp, I got to see Agnete!! She was a Danish exchange student to Florida last year that my family had the pleasure of hosting. I missed her so much, and I was so excited to finally see her again.

Denmark in general is wonderful. Every day I get to look out my window and see a sprawling field, and then look out the other window and see Kolding Fjord. It still hits me sometimes that I’m in Europe (in a good way though). My life here has become normal. I wake up, catch two buses, go to school, talk to my friends (I have friends! Yay!), come home, and do it all over again. Also, every Monday and Wednesday I take Danish lessons in Kolding, and those really help me. Luckily there are 3 other exchange students (from a different program) taking the same language class; It’s nice having people around who understand how I am feeling. I love Denmark, though. I really do. I can’t thank Rotary enough for sending me here.

A small list of the differences in Denmark:

Staring is accepted

Denmark really is the happiest country in the World; my host dad is constantly whistling.

The school throws parties for the students (it’s bizarre)

People don’t get offended by anything here. (For example, when we had to dress up in costume for our class picture, two guys dressed as Nazi’s.)

Subway would be considered very unhealthy to these people.

People drive like maniacs, but are surprisingly very skilled at it.

They are unfathomably prompt.

Kids actually pay attention in class and listen to their teacher (shocking, I know).

The “Breaking News” in Denmark wouldn’t even make it into the newspaper in America.

If you come to Denmark, you had better love bread, potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, and licorice.

Everyone can speak at least a little bit of English, except for bus drivers. Sometimes I have to play charades in order for them to understand me.

Tusind tak Rotary! Vi ses.

November 7 Journal

To begin, I would like to thank Rotary so much for giving me this opportunity. I couldn’t be happier in Denmark, and Rotary earns all of the credit for that.

I’ve done a lot since the last time I wrote, starting with my trip to Copenhagen (København for the Danes). One of my friends from school invited me to stay with her for 4 days in the capital, and I was pretty excited. I had never been (except for when I flew in), and the first thing we did when we got off the train was shop. Copenhagen has an extremely long shopping street, and I did some pretty nice damage to my credit card that day (sorry Dad). The next two days were spent sightseeing; even though my friend had been there multiple times, she didn’t mind taking me to all of the tourist attractions. I saw the Little Mermaid, went on a boat tour of Nyhavn, walked to the top of Rundetårn (Round Tower), and went to Amalienborg Palace. On the last day I was there, I met up with a few other exchange students for an afternoon of hygge. I really do consider the other exchange students to be my family.

A few weeks after Copenhagen, I went to a Rotary weekend in Holbæk with all of the 200 other exchange students in Denmark. It was a costume party in celebration of Halloween, and people got really into dressing up. Some of the costumes had me rolling on the floor from laughter. That was one of the best weekends I have had here, and I am always sad to say goodbye to the exchange students.

When it comes to school, I’m a pretty big fan. Even though it starts a little too early for my taste, I really like being there with my classmates. In two days I have to give a presentation on the welfare and health care system in America for my society class. I’m a little nervous, but I think that all those Rotary presentations I did made me ready for it. Luckily the teacher doesn’t mind if I do it in English.

As for my Danish, it’s coming along a little slowly. I can understand almost everything, and I can read a lot of it, but speaking it is really difficult. My American accent is so heavy, and I just get confused with the sentence structure. But the Danes really love when I speak Danish, so I try as much as possible.

Life in Denmark is wonderful, and really different from my life in Florida. I am much more independent here. I have to do things by myself, and I have to make my own decisions. It’s definitely an opportunity to grow up. The idea of leaving seems ridiculous, but considering that these last 3 months flew by, I know that I will be back in Florida soon, which means I need to take every opportunity I get here. I know that this is the experience of a lifetime, and that in the end I will have become a better person, and a stronger person. I will have done and seen more than most kids my age, and my view on the world will be permanently changed. Again, all the praise goes to Rotary, Al Kalter, Jody Davis, and everyone else who made this possible.

January 3 Journal

Hej alle, godt nyt år!

Hey everyone, happy New Year! Today, I have been in Denmark for 5 months and 1 day, and the fact that it is already 2010 blows my mind. Also, I figured that instead of having my journal be askew and messy, I should organize it into sections (the Danish way).

Skole (School)

The school system in Denmark is completely different than the American system. Kids here graduate at 15 from efterskole, and after that they can either get a job, or choose to attend a secondary school. The secondary school closest to a High School is a Gymnasium, which is the school I go to. My school, Kolding Gymnasium, starts at the un-Godly hour of 8:05 in the morning, and ends either at 2 or 3:30 in the afternoon, depending on the day. My classes are different every day, and if the teacher doesn’t show up, the class is canceled. I like school here because you are given a lot more freedom and responsibility than at American high school. If you want to text during class, go right ahead; if you have to use the facilities during class, it is fine to just get up and walk out. Also, the lack of dress code and police officers shocked me a little bit as well.

Mad (Food)

The individual food eaten here is not very different from the US; it’s mostly the way it’s eaten. For example, the Danish frokost (or lunch). Basically, you have all the main ingredients to make a normal lunch: meat, potatoes, and vegetables. However, instead of eating them individually, you take everything and pile it on top of a piece of rugbrød (dark Danish bread). This puzzled me GREATLY the first time I had lunch here. Now, I am used to eating everything on bread; I even kind of like it now. Look at me, I’m adapting.

Familie (Family)

I moved to my 2nd host family in November, and it consists of my host parents and their 5 children. My new home is much closer to the school than my last house (it’s also closer to the mall, so that’s a plus). The family itself, however, is what I consider a learning experience. Exchange consists of ups and downs; I’m just figuring out how to make even the worst downs turn into ups.

En Sjov Liste (A Fun List)

Face piercings are not considered taboo in Denmark…

Neither is having bright pink hair.

Public transportation is faaantastic.

Dinner is not complete unless there are candles.

A small gasp is how you will be acknowledged. Very confusing the first time it happens.

Exchange students will become your family.

You will sleep when you’re dead.

The weight gain is no joke; so far its 10 pounds and counting…

When you’re told to be ready at 6, they really mean 5:45.

Danes sing everywhere.

Traveling to Germany or Sweden is no big deal to Danish people.

Big Brother is everywhere in Denmark.

Nudity is considered normal, therefore the TV censors nothing.

After showering, one must wipe down the faucets and walls so as not to leave water spots.

According to the Danes, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing (however, I beg to differ).

At first, Danish teenagers appear to be cold and distant, but if you give them a little while to open up, they will be your friends for life.

Unfortunately, after celebrating the New Year, I realized that I will be going home this year. So far, this has been the best experience of my life, and I hate knowing that I will have to say goodbye to my new life in only 6 months. However, I’m going to make the best of it for now, and I’ll be sure to document the rest of my exchange for y’all Rotary Florida! Vi ses snart!

February 23 Journal

Sadan Rotary!

I have gone through multiple stages over the last 6 months: overwhelmed, depressed, angst-ridden, happy, and completely in love. At the moment I am standing firmly in the last stage, blissfully married to the Danish culture. I love eating warm rundstykker in the morning, listening to the ever-popular techno music, actually dressing nice, experiencing real independence; I love overhearing a Danish conversation and knowing exactly what they are talking about. My class is wonderful, and I really feel like a part of the school. I have been told by many people that it will be strange not having me here next year, and that makes me both ecstatic and heart-broken, all at the same time.

Another thing I love: moving. I love moving. I love saying the word; it just sort of rolls out of your mouth. Last Thursday I got to experience the joy of moving; of packing up all your things and walking out the door, knowing that you will never have to see that long, white, ominous hallway ever again. My new house is out in the country, about 3 miles outside of Kolding. I live in a very old and very large farmhouse, with a million different rooms. My host parents have 4 daughters, two of which are married and moved away. The others are 19 and 17, and are two of the sweetest girls I have ever met. The family is so warm and welcoming, and they bake incredible bread (so that’s a plus).

I’m sure you would all like to hear about the things that I do here, but they have become so normal to me, I really don’t know if you would care. Basically, I go to school, hang out with friends, go shopping, eat, go to the gym (future outbounds, I recommend joining one; those Rotary pounds sneak up on you), have family time, and (of course) brag about Rotary.

Normally, I would make a list stating the differences between Denmark and America, but I no longer notice them really. Instead, I think that I will help out the future outbounds headed for Denmark (whom I am incredibly jealous of), and make a list of the things that might surprise and/or shock them. So this is for you future-Scandinavian exchange students!

You will eat bread everyday, 2-3 times a day. After the first week (when you get tired of eating bread for lunch) do not ask to have something different, they will look at you funny and tell you that there is nothing else to eat.

After gym class, if you choose to shower, you will have to do it with everyone. There are no walls or dividers in the showers. I hope you’re comfy with your body!

It is very fashionable for girls to wear leggings with long, skin-tight tank tops and call that an outfit. Yes, it does show off every line, wrinkle, and roll on their body, but it’s just how they do it.

You will see many people tuck their pants into very high socks.

Don’t be surprised if alcohol is served at your school. Velkommen til Danmark!

Don’t get scared when an adult gasps quickly while you’re talking. A quick gasp is how they acknowledge you.

Danish people pronounce “v” like “w”. For example, I live in Jacksonwille, not Jacksonville.

You have to be 18 in Denmark to drive, so if you do have your license, you will be very popular. (Not that you will drive of course, just the fact that you have the ability to drive. Remember those D’s)

If you want an automatic door to open, you will have to practically press your nose against the door. Except for the train doors, those you actually WILL have to press your nose against.

Ask your Rotary Counselor to invest in a DSB Wild Card for you. It makes traveling the country by train so much cheaper.

When you go into a grocery store, you will be trapped inside. The only way to get out is to buy something, or to press a button that opens a small gate, allowing you to leave.

Also, at supermarkets, they don’t bag groceries for you. You will have to bring your own bags or carry everything.

They will stare at you. EVERYONE! Your classmates, your family, random people on the street, etc… it’s very normal to stare in Denmark.

When you first meet your classmates, you will assume that they have no personality. You will assume that Danes are the coldest and most distant people you have ever met. But I promise you, they will open up to you, and you will discover that they are the sweetest and most caring people on Earth.

Værsgo! And don’t forget, have fun. It really is the best time of your life, and it will pass by quicker than you can imagine.

July 11 Journal

Hello RYE Florida, it’s been a while. Sorry about the wait.

I leave Denmark in 3 days, and it’s indescribably frightening. I am already preparing myself for the first breaths I take as I step out of Jacksonville International Airport; I have been told that I won’t be able to breathe. I am attempting to ready myself for the shock of driving through town again, and it only recently slapped me hard in the face that I have to go back.

I’m not angry that I have to go back. I’ve had a great year, and I always knew it would end. I’m not going to go into a depression when I get home, or hate everyone and everything. I’ve met so many people, and made so many memories. When I think back on my year, I know that it was the best possible decision, and that another year of American high school wouldn’t even come close to the things I learned on exchange. However, I’ve accepted that it’s over; that I have to go back. Do I feel like I’ve just left? Yes. Do I feel heartbroken when I think about the people I’ll probably never see again? Yes. Am I thankful for the time I had? Absolutely.

Tomorrow I will be saying goodbye to the other exchange students that I’ve become close to. That will break me for a little while. There is nothing and no one I will miss more than the exchange students I met here; we’re already planning a reunion.

To end this last journal entry, I will just say thank you in Danish. In all the possible ways you can say it.

Tak. Tusind Tak. Mange Tak. Tak for Det. Tak Skal Du Har. Tak for I Morgen. Tak for I Dag. Tak for I År. Tak for I Går. Selv Tak. Tak for Mad.

Peter’s Bio

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” -Alan Cohen

Hallo! I am Peter Humbarger, and I am a gregarious sophomore at Allen D. Nease High School. I have two sisters that are both in college, so I live at home with my parents, my bearded dragon and my cat. When my sisters come home, I always enjoy hanging out with them at the beach, movies, or wherever. My whole family is very inspirational to me, and helps me through difficult times. They are definitely one of the biggest things that I will miss when I am abroad.

Swimming is a major part of my life, being that I spend about two and a half hours at the pool every day. Hopefully they have a swim team in Germany. I also have an affinity for music, which I find very relaxing. I played violin for 10 years, and my love for music will always be with me.

When I found out that I was going to be studying abroad for a whole year, it was somewhat surreal. The reality of living in a foreign country away from friends and family for a whole year still has not sunk in, but I am very excited for something different. Although there may be difficult times, this process will be an amazing experience, one that I will never forget. The wisdom, independence, and knowledge that I will gain from this will be unparalleled. It is a life changing experience, and I am so grateful to have been chosen to take part in this program. I would like to thank everyone that is making my exchange possible.

Peter’s Journals

October 24 Journal

After “untying the piano from my bum” (Daphne Cameron), I decided to write my first journal. It has been a little more than 11 weeks since I stepped off that plane in Hannover, and I have loved every minute of it. From the different language, to the people’s attitudes, I have had an amazing experience so far.

In the first month that I was here, I realized that no one back in Florida could have ever prepared me for what I felt in my new home. The feeling of normality, the feeling that Germany really isn’t that much different as I thought, and that my life isn’t drastically changing to the circumstances. It’s interesting to think that before I left, we did so much preparation and work to come to a country, but in my opinion, I like learning from my mistakes in the language, I like realizing subtle changes in my lifestyle without me knowing of them taking place, but most of all, I love the people. In Germany, and the rest of Europe I assume, people are not judgmental, and very open-minded about things. For example, I went into a German sauna for the first time last week in Berlin in a hotel, and was blown away when I saw both naked men and women in the same room. People here are not prudes like they are in America, and it is quite fascinating.

Family: When I first met my family at the airport, they seemed like a nice family that would be very welcoming, and they turned out to be that exactly. They have been very hospitable, and have made my experience here all the better. I will not say that they are perfect, as no family is, but I really lucked out.

School: School in Germany is quite peculiar, and much different than school in Florida. I go to a Gymnasium, which is the highest level of school, and am in the class 10Music. I am taking a total of 12 classes, and have 24 hours of school a week. One thing that I am not a big fan of is that the teachers move from class to class, not the students. Therefore, I will have all the same classes with all the same students for the whole year. The even crazier thing is that these people have been in the Music class since 5th grade, meaning that they have had the same 20 people in their class for 5 years!

Language: The German language is actually extremely difficult. Much more difficult than I had expected when I started doing Live Mocha. I had no idea that the 3 ways to say “the” and all of the adjectives would change, according to if you were talking about where you were, who, whom or what. It is sehr schwer. And I am yet to have a dream in German.

Food: One word: Delicious! The food here is truly magnificent. From the schnitzel to the goulash, I love it all. And, I haven’t even had to try very many weird things, which is nice.

Things that are different from America:

People greet each other with hugs and kisses to the cheeks.

Bread is eaten at every meal

Buses are the main means of transportation for teenagers.

Walk in closets are a luxury.

Houses are much smaller due to the lack of space.

It costs thousands of euros to get a license, and you have to be 18.

People aren’t fat.

Soccer = Life

Michael P’s Bio

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer

As you can probably tell from the quote, I absolutely love music. My name is Michael Pett and I’m a 16 year old boy going to St. Petersburg Collegiate High School. I’m not exactly sure what other people would think is interesting about my life so I figured I would give a broad overview. I was born and raised in St. Petersburg/ Pinellas Park, FL. My favorite school subjects would be English and History, whereas my least favorite is DEFINITELY Mathematics (which I despise).

I have a dorky dad who is very musical and artistic even if the only time he acts like that is when he sings some crazy old song from the time before time. My mom is amazing but absolutely insane when we get left alone, our sense of humor is way too similar so we usually end up laughing to the point of crying at dumb fart jokes. I have two siblings, the oldest being my brother who is a “fountain of useless knowledge” – he is still my favorite brother. There’s also my sister who is proud in the fact that she is a year older than me, although she can get annoying, and we fight all the time, she is still the coolest sister I’ve ever had.

Now on a completely different subject than my family, we have my friends. My group includes one Romanian, two anime freaks, a cool African-American, a sadistic nerd, two awesome artists, and then a whole bunch of other dorks who for some reason or another I get along with wonderfully. My friends are absolutely insane, crazy, batty, cuckoo, silly, wacky, deranged, demented, erratic, psycho, and any other synonyms for crazy that you can come up with (use a thesaurus). However even though they are completely nuts they are my friends, and we all laugh at each other’s funny mistakes or horrible jokes, we help each other with homework, and steal each other’s phones just to see how long it will take before they notice. In conclusion we are pretty much just AWESOME!

Back on the topic of music, I have been a pianist since I was 5 or 6. Although I’m not quite as far as I should be (due to my lack of motivation for a few years) I think that my skills are moderate. Plus, even if they aren’t as wonderful as some people may hope for, I still enjoy playing piano, and that’s all that matters to me. However, although I may listen to the occasional classical piano piece (and I adore piano soundtracks from movies), I do tend to listen to more rock and pop. If you were to look at my IPod you would find tons of random and weird artists who nobody has ever heard of (courtesy of my Romanian friend). In fact I have rap, country, hip hop, techno, classical, rock, pop, oldies, and weird combinations of a whole bunch of different genres.

OK well hopefully I didn’t put you to sleep or anything, if I seemed really boring just talk to me or something because I’m really not. I tend to be a rather “unique” person, and I enjoy it very much. So I guess this is ciao for now (that’s supposed to be funny).

 Michael P’s Journals

August 14 Pre-departure Journal

Alright well I’m really not sure how to start off my first journal, so I guess I’ll just start from the very beginning. I had been wanting to be an exchange student for two years now. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to be on the first year I wanted to, but as soon as Rotary talked at my school the next year I jumped at the opportunity. Obviously I was interviewed just like everyone else and I became 1/4 of all of the Outbound student in District 6950. After the interview I waited in anticipation (and very impatiently) for the news of my host country. When I checked my email and I had a message from Rotary in it I seriously felt like my heart would explode out of my chest. From that point on I was officially going to ITALY!!

Now most people when I told them would say something along the lines of “Wow, you’re so lucky”, but would you believe that Italy was in fact my 3rd choice? Now I’m not saying that I’m any less excited, in fact now that I know so much about Italy I’m ecstatic that they are sending me there instead. However there were some downer points about going to Italy. The most major one being that the outbounds to Italy always leave SOO late, but who really cares. I mean, come on, it’s Italy!

After I had known what my host country was for quite some time I was getting very annoyed that I hadn’t found out anything else. So when the “boot camp” finally came around and I was one of the few who didn’t know ANYTHING else, you can imagine my disappointment. Then I was told that the night before the “boot camp” they had apparently posted my district on the RYE web site. What’s up with that?!? That was when I found out I was going to Cagliari, on the island of Sardegna (Sardinia). Which for those of you who don’t know, it is the island across from Rome and above Sicily.

So of course as soon as the “boot camp” ended and I was at home again I immediately got on the computer, typed Cagliari into Google, and pulled up the Wikipedia page (sorry Al). I believe a week passed by before my next tidbit of information came in. I was checking my email like I always do and I had an email from a really weird address. When I opened up the email it was COMPLETELY in Italian! Turns out my first host mom decided to email me. She is seriously amazing, and the rest of the family seems awesome too. In my host family I have a Mom (Aurelia), Dad (Franco), older brother (Marco), and younger brother (Luca). Unfortunately I probably won’t get to meet the older brother because he is already in Coral Springs, FL on an exchange of his own.

Last thing I have to write about is the visa …. dilemma. My host family was kind enough to invite me to come to Italy early (yet another reason why I love them); unfortunately I had to have my documents from Italy before I could apply for my visa. Those documents came on Thursday, last week. However I couldn’t take off work so I had to wait to apply. Then I had trouble getting one of the documents from the bank, who had apparently “thought they sent it”. So hoping that the bank would finally send it to us we headed to Miami and called the bank personally to get them to send it overnight to our hotel. And can you believe that they DID IT?! Yeah, I was as surprised as you are. So I finally got to drive to the Italian consulate to apply for my visa. My mom and I got to the building, put 30 minutes worth of coins into the meter, and went inside. Pretty much we just got sent upstairs and a nice worker told me that I would get my visa on SATURDAY!!! (or early the next week). The weirdest thing was that after we had finished everything in the consulate and had gone back outside we still had 21 minutes left on the meter. The ENTIRE process took 9 minutes, 2 of which were spent going up and down in the elevator.

Well I guess that’s a short story long. Sorry for rambling. The next journal I write will most definitely be sent from Cagliari, Sardegna, in the beautiful country of Italy.

August 28 Journal

OK so I’ll start with when I was still in Tampa, me, my mother, a close family friend, and one of my friends from school all went to the airport. So we go inside and we put my bag on the scale and it was 4 pounds too heavy!! I weighed it at home so I really have no idea what I did wrong. Either way I had to take some stuff out and put it in my carry on. Finally after I got that bag light enough and checked in, we all started walking to the first gate. Yeah well guess what, after we say all the teary goodbyes and hug and kiss and etc., my second bag was too fat. So then we repositioned everything in it and put a few things in the other carry on, until it just barely passed the width requirement. So a few more goodbyes and I was off to security, where I got stopped yet again, for my third and final bag, because the gift I had for my host mother apparently looks suspicious under x-ray. In the end it all worked out OK, through all of the other airports I had only had trouble with the one in Italy, which was quite confusing, but I got here so it wasn’t too bad. The rest of the airport and airplane story is pretty boring, I pretty much sat on the plane for 10 hours sleeping, watching movies, and listening to music.

So when I got to my last airport and I was all ready to meet my host family, I found out that my bag had been lost, which really wasn’t that big a deal because I had enough clothes in my carry on to last me a few days, and they said that my bag shouldn’t take too long to get to the house. Of course I didn’t know any of this because I’m American, not Italian, therefore I speak English not Italian. So I didn’t know any of this until after some nice people I met guided me to where I could find my host family. They came in with me and got everything sorted out, and I didn’t have to worry at all.

I went with my host family and we all went to their house/apartment which they will be in for about another 3 months. Definitely not a big deal because as apartments go, this one was pretty nice, and I had Snoopy sheets on my bed. =) Definitely one of the highlights of my day. I then found out that we weren’t going to be spending much time there for the next two weeks, in fact we were going to be leaving that house about an hour after we got there. Which was fine because that meant I got to see even more of this beautiful country on the way to Porto Corallo, which definitely has to be one of the prettiest beach cities I’ve ever seen. It’s quaint, so the beaches are never too crowded, but it has just enough people so that it isn’t hick or anything like that. We had to drive through the ‘Sette Fratellis’, or the seven brothers to get to my host family’s summer home. (They are mountains by the way.)

We didn’t do to much else that day, but we did of course have the Sardegnan meal (not pizza) – FISH!! The evening that I got here we had a big get together with a whole bunch of people that I didn’t know (which was amazing because everyone was so happy and fun) and ate a HUGE dinner. When I say huge I really mean it. To list a few of the foods there were: Tuna, fried potatoes, squash, wild boar, octopus, a few other things that used to live in the ocean, melons, peaches, goat, and many other things. All of which I tried a little bit of each, because even if I absolutely adored one thing, there was no way that I was gonna be able to eat all of it while still being polite and trying everything else. Oh and one great discovery, the Coke here in Italy, is just as good as the Coke in America!

Not to much else to say, I’ve been here a little more than a week, and I could bore you with all the little details but I’ll resist. Here are some of the highlights and a few other key points:

– The gelato really is AMAZING! You really won’t know until you try it.

– The beaches in Italy are better than the beaches in Florida (sorry America).

– It’s always a good idea to apply sunscreen evenly, I found out I missed a few spots so I now have four different colors on my back (pale, slightly less pale, tan, and burned to a crisp).

– The pizza is AWESOME, but they have some weird toppings, like hot dogs, and french fries.

– Apparently air conditioning is not very popular in Sardegna, which turns out isn’t as bad as you would think it would be, there is almost always a nice breeze.

– Euros look cooler than dollars.

– The banks here a crazy (you have to go through an enclosed metal detector one by one before you can enter the building).

– Turns out here, even if you have a problem (such as with documents or something) you should never worry, because everyone is nice and they will all try to help you through it.

– There are quite a lot of crazy drivers in Italy, thank you Rotary for not allowing me to drive, because I would almost definitely die.

– Horse is really really delicious, don’t be a sissy, try it!

And last of all

Italy Rocks!!

September 21 Journal

I’ve been in Italy for just about a month now, and I am still loving it! I’m lucky that I haven’t gotten homesick yet, because I’ve talked to some of the other exchange students who have had it pretty bad. Though I’m sure I’ll get to have that lovely experience eventually (hope not). Either way for right now everything is just settling into place. Before school started I did a lot of things and visited a lot of places, some examples would be Il Bastione, Il Poetto, tons and tons of shops, I’ve seen two movies in Italian, etc. etc. They have been definitely keeping me busy.

I have to say that one of the definite highlights of my time here so far (before school) was when my host mom and I went to a theater near one of the historical monuments. The theater itself was open, as in it had no roof!! We saw a performance of three pianos, which were all replicas of pianos that were hundreds and hundreds of years old. I was definitely lucky that night, and I have no idea why, but I’m not gonna question it. The two people that were doing all the speaking could only speak in English, so I might have been the only person in the theater that understood them fluently. I had to translate what they said for my host mom, but it was still an amazing performance. After the performance was over my host mom and I got to go talk to the speakers (one of them being the pianist and the other being the piano maker). The pianist was an esteemed Russian pianist that came from a very prestigious musical family in Russia. The piano builder turned out to be really cool, and also turned out to be the husband of the pianist. I talked to him a lot and in the end he ended up asking me for my email address so that he could send me information on some of the newer pianos he was building. I, of course, pulled out my handy dandy Rotary cards and gave one to him, and then had to leave before my host family left me.

Of course now school has started, and I am busy with school work and crazy Italian parties (joking on that last part). I have a lot of different classes including philosophy, math, English, Italian, art history, physics, biology, chemistry, a computer class, and a few others. Now I can’t say that my school is beautiful, but all of my teachers seem to be pretty sympathetic, and I’ve even had one tell me that if I don’t understand something or need him to slow down to just interrupt him and ask him to help. Now if you take the coolness of the teachers and multiply it by a bajillion you will have the coolness of my class. EVERYONE is so funny and they keep me and the other American in my class feeling very much like part of the class. On my first day of school four of the boys in class left for about 2 minutes and came back with these more comfortable chairs, I had no idea where they got them. However when two teacher came in 5 minutes later it became pretty apparent that they had taken the teachers chairs out of the nearby classrooms (the teachers weren’t even mad, they just wanted their chairs back).

Now school is starting to get boring, but luckily before it did I was invited to go to one of the coolest things ever, a DISCOTECA! Which is pretty much equivalent to a club in America except that anyone that’s over 12 can get into one in Italy. It was really really fun, there was deafeningly loud music blasting out of the speakers, blindingly bright lights flashing across the floor, people suffocatingly close, and yet it still managed to be tied with the piano performance as one of the best nights I’ve had in Italy so far. I can’t wait to go again, though it might be while, because at the moment the teachers are starting to increase the workload, since it’s officially school time now.

I definitely can’t wait for the next amazing thing to happen, and I’m sure that they will keep on coming!

I’ll have photos next time.

Ciao ciao

November 16 Journal

So it’s been a while since I wrote my last journal. Which I didn’t even realize until my parents reminded me that I needed to write a new one. Time when you are on an exchange really does get confusing. For some reason I still feel like I was still in Florida just a few weeks ago, but when I actually stop and think about all the things I’ve done here, it feels more like few years. Oh well, I still have a lot of time left in Italy, so I figure I shouldn’t start worrying about that yet.

Well, after all that fun with the Discoteca (sooo long ago) I did tons of other things. One thing that I love about Italy is that you really don’t even have to look for things to do, they will just come to you. Almost every weekend I’m asked by someone in my class, or one of my friends from the other classes, or even the other exchange students, to go somewhere. Those places usually vary from going to the mall, the movies, going to dinner (Chinese food was wonderful here), going shopping on the big shopping street in Cagliari, and even just walking around. Now I have to say that just walking around in my city back in the U.S. would not have been very fun, but here it is ALWAYS fun. I have walked the same streets over 10 times within just the last month, and if someone asked me right now, I would go walk them again. Alright enough about that, on to specific events.

Caitlynne (Rotary exchange student from Hawaii) and I tried to get lost in Cagliari. I believe we were walking for 2 or 3 hours just around the city going nowhere specific. However for some reason neither of us could get completely lost. There were just too many things that we thought were cool and wanted to remember, or we would hit one of the streets that connects with ALL of the other ones. Either way in the end we decided that we were in fact “lost” because we didn’t think that we could find our way back exactly, even if we knew where we were. One thing that sticks out in my mind about this “adventure” was the massive amount of hills that we have in Cagliari. Hills do NOT exist in Florida, and here they are EVERYWHERE, so we definitely got a workout trying to get lost.

We also had a Rotary youth exchange outing, which was pretty cool. The six Rotary kids in and around Cagliari all got together and went out for pizza. It was definitely interesting when we walked in the pizzeria and were bombarded by the noise of 20 little kids who were apparently having a Halloween party (this was the day before Halloween). That came to me as a complete surprise, because as far as I can tell Italians really don’t celebrate Halloween, they know it’s there, and they may go out and do something small, but they don’t have trick-or-treaters, or tons of candy. Either way our pizza outing was still lots of fun (I had pizza with gorgonzola if anyone wanted to know), after we all finished we just walked around a bit and then all headed home.

One of the highlights definitely had to be going clothes shopping with Italians. Even better was that it was clothes shopping with a time limit because one of them had to be home really soon. I had decided that I really wanted some new jeans, so that when I get back to America I will have “Italian” jeans. =) So I got three of my friends (girls) to come with me to go get these amazing Italian jeans. All I have to say, is that when you put them on a time limit, they really get it done. They were zooming through all of the jean racks, picking out ones that they thought might look nice, then deciding amongst themselves which one was best. I ended up trying on two pairs of jeans, and I bought the second one for 40 euros (80% of my monthly allowance). I do have to say that I love those jeans, they have this cool little zipper thing that they put on the pocket, which is a style that I had never seen in America, so I’m really hoping that the fad makes it overseas.

Alright one of the last things that I’m going to talk about is the Halloween party that I had with all my Italian friends and my friend from Intercultura. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! We watched two horror movies, and I stayed the entire night (and morning) at the party. I do have to say that horror movies are not my thing, and they are even less my thing when I don’t understand the language they are in. All I have to say, if anyone asks you to watch the movie “Denti” which means “Teeth”, DO NOT watch it. Definitely one of the worst movies I have seen in my life. The second one was Saw II, which I had never seen before, and still haven’t seen, because we started that one at 4:00 in the morning, and I fell asleep when they were cutting open the person at the very beginning. So although the horror movies weren’t tons of fun, the overall party was tons of fun. Also I attempted to make chocolate cookies, which although they didn’t look like American chocolate chip cookies, they were packed full of chocolate and everyone loved them. Definitely a success!

Now I know that I didn’t talk about a ton of things that I’ve done, but really I think you guys would get bored if I just keep babbling on like this. I also blew all my money shopping on the big shopping street, went to a bday party for Caitlynne, saw a few school strikes, tried more new food, etc. etc. If I remember something absolutely amazing that I missed I promise I will put it in my next journal.

February 8 Journal

Alright well I know that this journal is INSANELY late, but you just have to realize how much fun it is over here. It’s pretty hard to tear myself away from friends, food, movies, travelling a little, and even TV to do a journal. However I’ve made you guys suffer enough, so I am going to write this journal from the last time I wrote to New Years. Then I will post another journal next week about all of January, because if I put both of them together it would be way too long.

Ok, so from the time I left off I celebrated several holidays. First of all Thanksgiving, and I have to say it was definitely one of the most interesting Thanksgiving’s that I have ever had. Like Austin Carroll mentioned in her journal we were the ones that did all the cooking (Caitlynne, Austin, and myself). Really though I didn’t do much, I was in charge of the music that we were playing while “cooking”. So when I get there Caitlynne and Austin had already made a cake, mashed potatoes, green beans, and several other things, so they really didn’t leave much for me to do. Or at least that’s what I thought until I saw the turkey. That bird must have been MASSIVE when it was still alive, as it was we were afraid it was too big to cook in the small Italian oven. So I at least got to help make the turkey, and by help I mean I gave it a very professional oil massage =). In the end everything turned out wonderful, I don’t really know whether the Italians liked our food, but at least they weren’t spitting it out. I think that the weirdest thing that happened that day was that we somehow got lectured by an Italian on how to make American gravy, the sad thing is that he was right.

After Thanksgiving there was still so much to do, and since here they don’t have a school vacation for Thanksgiving I had to do everything after school or on the weekends. I would say that 80% of everything I had to do was finding Christmas gifts for the people in my family. I won’t bore you with all the details about that, but I will say that I walked up and down the shop street so many times in December I don’t understand why my legs aren’t as hard as steel. Plus after the main shop street I had to go to the mall, city market, etc. etc. In the end I did end up finding all the gifts that I wanted to buy for everyone, plus a few things for myself (which is always a good thing). Unfortunately the day before Christmas eve I had my wallet stolen when I was going to buy the last few gifts. Now normally I would have been annoyed but at least kept my cool, however my wallet happened to have my license, bus card, debit card, contact cards for Rotary, and most importantly my permission of stay! So needless to say I was freaking out, I went up and down the street where it was stolen a bajillion times talking to EVERYONE! I knew who stole it, but it’s not like I had any proof or anything so it didn’t really do much good. I did eventually get some pity from the people and they helped me out, I told them ‘I really don’t care whether the money in the wallet comes back, but my permission of stay is in there and I can get in really big trouble if I don’t get that back’. Long story short: I ended up getting called by the police and they told me that my wallet had somehow miraculously returned, unfortunately it returned without the money inside. Oh well, I was just happy that the money was the only thing I lost, and I do realize how lucky I was that I got it back. Lesson here, when you are walking by all the people that are selling fakes on the street, keep track of your wallet a little better.

Now on to some of the best times that I’ve had here, the time from Christmas to New Year’s was absolutely amazing. On Christmas eve I went over to my aunt’s and uncle’s house, which was really cool because I’m really close with all of them, including both of their kids (Giulia 17 and Simone 13 almost 14). They are some of the best host cousins I could ever ask for, and they have been since I got here in August. Though I was really shy at first we are now pretty much like family, we all tease each other, and play around a lot, and it’s like that with just about everyone in my family now.

Anyway, for Christmas eve we went over to their house and hung out, ate, played videogames, ate, talked, ate, etc. You might think I’m joking about eating that much, but you guys just need to meet my family. I swear we had so much food that we had it on all three of the tables (two of which had no people at them, and the one with people is really really big). The funny thing is that this was only the first day of the Christmas celebrations, which start on Christmas eve and end the day after Christmas. Also everyday we made more food, plus we had to eat the food that was left over from the other days. Either way, although though food was amazing, I do have to say that the most exciting thing on Christmas Eve was the PRESENTS! In Italy they open presents at midnight, so I guess it’s technically Christmas morning, but it’s not like we went to sleep at all on Christmas eve, so I consider it still Christmas eve. I’m not going to list all my presents, but I will mention that I got a Sardegnan knife, Andrea Bocelli cd, clothes, money, a sardo dictionary, and a few other things. It was really fun, I especially love the knife, which is hand made and uses goat horn for the handle.

So after all the excitement from the gifts was over we ate a little bit more, they toasted for Christmas, then we went home, because we were dead tired even if we were happy. Though we my as well have just spent the night at their house because we came back the next day (Christmas Day) before 10:00 and had some more fun, it was kind of like a repeat of the previous day, except we had more people that came to eat with us. I went around with Giulia and our friend Eleonora. We just walked around a little bit, then came back to celebrate some more with family. Some of you may be thinking that it might be kinda boring to just do the same thing over, but you couldn’t be more wrong. It doesn’t matter how many times we did the things, my family made it so much fun, and there was always something new to talk about. I got to hear stories of the years that I wasn’t here, I got to meet even more of my relatives that I had never met, and I got to eat amazing food =).

We also played Tombola! Which I can’t say that I was very good at and I usually didn’t play because you had to bet some money, but I do believe that I won something like 5 or 6 euros, and I only paid 2. So I was pretty happy. Oh but I didn’t really explain what Tombola is, it’s kind of like Bingo except you have a lot more numbers that you have to deal with, and you have to get three in a row, then one row entirely, then you have to have your entire board filled. If you win the one with your entire board filled you win the most money (the one with only three you only win 1 to 2 euros depending on how many people are playing ). Either way in conclusion to the Christmas season, it was something that I would never give up, and I’m so happy that I was able to talk well enough that I didn’t have any problems staying in the conversations and chatting with the relatives that I had never met.

Alright, well I’m going to have to skip all of the things that I did after Christmas, long story short I hung out with friends, and I went on a whole bunch of fair rides that were in the port, so it was still fun. Now for New Years, I got invited to a party with Giulia and Eleonora. So on New Years eve we went over to the house where the party was. I’m not gonna go into detail, but it was definitely a really fun party, we were having so much fun talking, eating, playing guitar hero, dancing, listening to music, etc. that we didn’t realize that it was New years until 5 minutes after. Then we all started yelling, cheering, toasting, hugging, kissing, wishing people a happy new year, and setting off fireworks. The fireworks were so much fun, they had bought a ton of different ones, so some of us went outside and set all of them off. I feel kinda bad, because if there was anyone that was sleeping on our street they definitely weren’t sleeping when we were finished. I think we set off 5 car alarms (we didn’t damage the cars, or even touch them), and we had so many firecrackers it sounded like a constant machine gun fire for about 3 minutes straight. Plus it was New Years so we were all really giddy and happy, whenever one of the fireworks got close to someone we would all start screaming, yelling, and then laughing when the person freaked out and would run away. I really can’t describe just how much fun I had at this party, we stayed up all night, so I didn’t sleep for two entire days (that’s a big deal for me).

Needless to say New Years day, after the party, I was pretty dead. I went back to my family’s house and played some videogames, watched Maid of Honor, and several other movies, and of course ate yet another feast. That night I seriously fell asleep before I hit the bed, but I was happy. I would say that was not only one of my best days in Italy, but also one of the best days I have ever had in my life.

Sorry that this journal was so long, but I will stop it here. In my next journal I’ll talk about the month of January and my change in families, among other things. I hope that everyone had a great time in for Christmas, New Years and everything else. O

Ciao ciao, bacione.

Nikki’s Bio

Once upon a time, on July 13, 1993, a baby girl was born at Florida Hospital, in Altamonte Springs, FL. This was not any ordinary girl; it was the one and only Hannah Nicole Frechette. Hannah’s parents, Ron and Stephanie Frechette were extremely excited when she came into this world because she was their first daughter. She was also the sister of Sean(9), Kenny(17), and Thomas(25).

From the time Hannah was born, she was a strong-willed child. When she made up her mind about something, very few people were able to change it. At the age of six, Hannah decided to change her name to Nikki. It all happened in the second grade when one of her big bad bully classmates dubbed her with the nickname, Hannah Banana. This nickname hurt her feelings, and she cringed when hearing it. Changing her name to Nikki made her feel like a new person.

Over the years, Nikki became very involved in the Catholic Church with her friends and family. She began attending Catholic school at age five. Nikki was very active in her church, school, and extracurricular activities. She was very devoted to spending time with her family, friends, cheerleading squad, and friends at dance.

Due to her strong will, Nikki grew to become a leader in most of the activities she was involved with. She was voted class president in 8th grade, appointed captain of the cheerleading squad, and was active in her youth group at church.

Nikki lived by the motto “If it is to be, it is up to me.” She did not mind standing out from the crowd. She always was smiling and inspired people with her positive thoughts. Her outgoing personality and positive attitude was contagious. Nikki knew she wanted to spread it to everyone, bringing people joy and high spirits.

When Nikki heard about the Rotary Youth Exchange Program through her Interact club, she felt it was a calling and would give her an opportunity to share her positive attitude with people from other parts of the world. With the support of her parents, she applied to the RYE program with all of her heart.

The first week of December, after Nikki applied, she anxiously awaited the acceptance letter. Everyday she would run to the mailbox to see if her letter had arrived. On December 5, 2008, little did she know, this was her big day, the day she had been waiting for. She received her letter of acceptance! Nikki was glowing and felt as if she were on top of the world. She felt even more blessed to discover that she was going to her first country of choice, Spain! Nikki knew at that point she had to be the luckiest girl alive! The end.

A message from the writer

Hello everyone my name is Nikki Frechette! I am fifteen years old, and as you have read I am a training outbound student to Spain! I have always had a passion for language and learning about cultures of places around the world. I wrote my biography in a fairytale form because I feel as if I am living in one to receive this opportunity to go abroad for a year. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to ever become an exchange student. I cannot thank the members of Rotary enough for accepting me into the program, and I promise you will not be disappointed! Thank you so much ahead of time!

Sincerely,

Hannah Banana

 Nikki’s Journals

September 3 Journal

So I have finally begun my big adventure and so far it has been exactly what I expected it’d be; exciting, thrilling, wonderful, and very overwhelming at times! I began my trip by saying goodbye to all of my friends and family at the airport. I flew out of Jacksonville airport at 11:55 A.M. and arrived in Detroit a few hours later. In Detroit I was sitting at “my” gate and when a former exchange student from Michigan confronted me. She noticed me in my Rotary blazer so after introducing ourselves we had a long discussion about how awesome Rotary is! After our long discussion we were comparing tickets when we realized I was not at “my” gate I had been waiting at. I had the right country, Amsterdam, but just the wrong flight. At this point I was completely freaked out! Luckily I was next to the real gate I was supposed to be waiting at, so she immediately directed me towards it. When I ran over there they had already boarded and fortunately I made it just in time!

I slept a lot of my flight but woke up when we were an hour or so away. The anxiety was then keeping me awake! I am so happy I woke up when I did though. When I looked out the window I saw the beautiful sight of London, England glowing. It blew me away and only boosted my excitement up another 10 levels! So when that 7 hour flight was over I was very pressed for time. I had about 45 minutes to make it to the opposite side of the Amsterdam airport, and that included going through the 30 minute security lines! It probably didn’t help that I was stressing over that so much. When I finally made it to the desk to have my passport stamped the woman noticed I only had a few minutes to get to my gate so she allowed me to skip everyone in the security lines! Once more I arrived at my gate just in time.

That flight went by very fast and next thing I knew I was running into the arms of my host father, Enrique, and my host brother, Pablo. We went home and they showed me around the house and then we walked to my school, San Juan Bautista, and the surrounding area of our gorgeous apartment complex. After this little tour I was incredibly worn out so I unpacked my things and went straight to sleep. I woke up to my beautiful host mother, Susana, telling me we were going swimming. The pool I swear must have been 60 degrees! It was freezing cold! After the pool we went over to a local supermarket where we picked up some things for dinner. I helped my host mother make gazpacho and then we went to a bar called Rojo Mar. There we ate pescado con aceitunas and mariscos. It was delicious! Then we returned home and ate some more! We had fried eggs, bread, jamon Serrano, and some queso. There is definitely a lot of eating here! I love it! J So now I just finished watching some TV with Susana, Enrique, Pablo, and don’t forget my handy dandy Spanish-English Dictionary! I can already tell this is going to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life! Thank you so much Rotary! Saludos!

September 29 Journal

Hello Everyone! I have just returned from a little town called Sotillo and I feel it is very necessary to share my experiences with you all!

First I would like to mention that the five days I spent in Sotillo were some of the best days of my life! The adventure began with a two hour drive to the town. When we entered the town all of the kids ran up to the car yelling in excitement for our arrival. This is when I knew that the weekend was going to be super fun! In this town my parents have a home that is gorgeous! It is two stories with all wooden floors and a beautiful backyard. Across from this house is a church that is also very pretty. Luckily I had the room with the balcony where I could go out and see everything. So after I was given a tour of the house, we went to meet the parents and brothers/sisters of Enrique and Susana. They were all very nice! Together we all went to a local bar and had a glass of wine. After some more introductions we headed up to the mountains where we went to eat dinner. The walk there was just stunning. The sights blew me away and the perfect view of the stars and the full moon only contributed to my amazement.

When we finally arrived in the mountains I was shown the bodegas. These are basically wine cellars down in the ground. These are everywhere in the mountains! People own them and customize them so that they look like actual houses inside (minus the dirt floors and the rocky walls and ceilings). But inside them there are couches, TVs, surround sound radio systems, bars, dance floors, etc. I’m not exactly sure how they get the cable all the way down there but it is possible. Anyways, we ate dinner and then a friend of my family took me into a bodega that was only for the teens. I made so many new friends there! Everyone wanted to talk to me and be my friend! I felt so loved! At about three A.M. we went to a party in the plaza where everyone dances and enjoys the company of one another. I went to bed at five A.M. this day!

Saturday, my friends came over and took me to the center of the city where they set off fireworks. After the fireworks were finished there was a countdown and then everyone exploded carbonated water all over each other! It was so funny to watch. When this was over I went to the house of Enrique’s parents for lunch. His mom was so sweet! She liked to pet my face and tell me how beautiful I was. She was so cute! Following lunch I went to take a long nap and then went to dinner. This night we ate lamb! It was delicious! And then after I repeated the night before. I went to the bodega and then to the plaza to dance. There was a live band from this day on.

Sunday, I woke up and went to tour the church with my host father. Then we began a procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The people of Sotillo danced backwards for a whole two km! This was from one side to the town to the other. When we got to the other side of the town we ate, of course. Eating is very popular here, along with sleeping. It’s a dream come true for me! After everyone ate we rode back to the other side of the town in a tractor! I went to a park and hung out with all my new friends and then went to the bodegas for dinner and dancing. Then again went to the plaza.

Monday, I woke up very early! The reason for this is because all the teenagers of the town came to my house and were playing music at my window. And remember that balcony I “luckily” had? Well I was not feeling so lucky then! When I finally sat up in bed I saw that someone was climbing up into my balcony. He then began banging on my door so I opened the door and I was taken outside and paraded around in my pajamas! Later on there was a big costume contest that is basically Halloween for us. It is a time when all of the kids dress up and walk down a red carpet and people vote on who is the best. The teens do not participate in this, but the adults do! My host parents and all of their friends dressed up and danced to Thriller by Michael Jackson. They won! It was hilarious to watch! After that we went to eat and then enjoyed one final night of the fiestas!

Then yesterday, I took some final pictures with my friends and headed back home to Madrid. I cannot wait to return to Sotillo. I already miss it and all of my friends! Everyone there is so friendly and I love it! We will be going back there next weekend! WOO HOOO!

Anyways! Thank you everyone who has gotten me this far in my exchange! Words cannot even begin to describe the wonderful time I’m having here! Love you all!

Nikki

October 27 Journal

Hola a todo el mundo! Since I have last written I have done so many new things! The biggest thing is start school! I love going to school! (Just not waking up early!) So the schools here are completely different from the schools in Florida! We go to school at 8:30 and have 6 classes a day. After every class we have a 5 minute break, and in the middle of the day we have a 15 minute break (instead of lunch). Then we finish school at 2:15 and go home and eat lunch with our families. Also, we don’t change classrooms! The teachers are always coming to our classes. And if the teachers don’t come to class you can leave the school! It’s great!

So I would definitely have to say my favorite classes are my TWO English classes. J They are always so exciting, and I think I am actually going to pass those 2 classes! (Well I hope!) The other day in my English class we played Blind Date and it was so much fun! I was the blind-dater and I asked the question: “If you could take me on the perfect date, where would it be?” Contestant #2 answered me, “I would take you to the McDonalds! The American’s favorite restaurant of course!” That made my day! But everyone at my school is very friendly with me! I’ll just be sitting in class and people will always say my name randomly. Another thing is they will just write my name on the board for fun! J I love it! I think I got really really really lucky because in my class there is a girl who is Venezuelan and she speaks fluent English! The ironic thing is she is from Florida too! So English is her main language, and she can always translate what the teachers say to me! She is definitely my hero and I would be lost without her! In summary school is WONDERFUL! J

So recently I went back to my dream town Sotillo♥, of course! We also visited a town close to Sotillo named Aranda! There we went to a big carnival and concert! It was so much fun! Another place I visited is Toledo! All I can say is WOW! Toledo is beautiful with a lot of history! I would love to go back to visit there another time! I also went to another place called Avila, which is also gorgeous! I have seen so many new things here and it has only been 1½ months! Oh, one of my favorite experiences I had here within my first month is LICE! YAY! I thoroughly enjoyed soaking my hair in mayonnaise! It was just so great. But with the help of my host parents and some magic shampoo, Nikki is lice-free! WOO- HOO!

I think it is safe to say I have figured out how to take the bus. About a week ago it was my first time to take the bus alone. So I went to the bus stop my friends told me I have to go to and waited there. As I was sitting I kept seeing my bus just pass me? I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop for me because they looked at me every time they passed. After about 1 hour at that stop I went to the previous one because I saw that the bus had stopped there. So then I was sure the bus was going to stop! WRONG! The bus did not stop for me, but stopped at another stop before. So after waiting there for 30 min I went to another stop in front of me and of course the bus didn’t stop. At this time I was incredibly confused! I didn’t understand why the busses didn’t want to stop for me. But finally I saw people at another stop and decided I would go there so maybe the bus person would stop. I went there and the bus stopped! When I got on the bus after 2 ½ hours I called my friend and told her the whole story and she just started laughing so hard and followed my story with one question, “Nikki, didn’t you stand up and wave to the bus driver?” J So I now know how to work the bus system!

Next subject: THE LANGUAGE! I am really learning the language fast! I would not say that I am fluent but I have a basic grasp on the language. I am really good at understanding the cuss words because my parents and 4 of their friends got together with me so they could learn all of the bad words in English. So in return I was taught all of the bad words! J But hopefully I will be understanding a lot more in a month or so. I really want to understand! (I have begun speaking a lot better now because my principal is helping me! She said if I create a cheerleading squad for our school she will help me improve my Spanish! So OF COURSE I said yes!!)

Some things I’ve learned, thanks to Spain:

Being American is the coolest thing since sliced bread. 

Cheerleaders are a myth.

Jacksonville is famous because of Twilight.

Americans eat giant hamburgers or pizza for every meal.

Every American has a gun. (They learn this from Grand Theft Auto, of course.)

Cutting off police officers is okay.

Driving 2 inches away from another car is necessary.

My host parents are training to become professional NASCAR drivers. Meanwhile they are practicing on the neighborhood streets. 

You’re not Spanish unless you eat a loaf of bread with every meal.

All Americans live in huge mansions.

Siestas do exist and complete me.

All of the big and manly looking men have little fluffy dogs!

If you go to a restaurant you must stay there for 4 hours, at least. (DEAD SERIOUS)

Scissors are no longer office supplies. They are kitchen appliances. You use them for cutting bread, pizza, peppers, spaghetti, and any other food you need to cut!

I finally feel like I belong here! The little things make such a big difference, from the doorman knowing me and opening the gate for me, to the mother of my best friend telling me she wants me to call her mom. J My love for Spain is growing rapidly! I am so blessed to have the family I have and to have this experience in general! Thank you Rotary! You sure are making my dreams come true!

Favorite question I was asked recently:

“Nikki, can you talk gangster for us?” 

December 26 Journal

FELiZ NAVIDAD!!! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! As a gift to you all I have decided to write another journal explaining my recent Spanish adventures!

First of all, if you read the end of my last journal I mentioned that my principal had asked me to start a cheerleading squad. The reason was because there was a big basketball tournament she wanted us to perform at. The whole idea of this basketball tournament was to make you feel like you were in an American basketball game. There is a basketball association here in Spain that goes around doing tournaments and such just like in the USA. Lucky for me when the head man of the program met me, he fell in love with me (theoretically) and wanted to write an article on me! The link for that is http://thegameoftheyear.es/new.php?id=15. J There is another article in which I am mentioned as well, http://thegameoftheyear.es/new.php?id=11. Not to mention at the pep rally AND the basketball game he spent about 15 minutes talking about me and I got a standing ovation! WOO! J So basically I’m famous here in Spain.

Anyways, back to the cheerleaders. The principal asked me to start this squad and make us the best. This was followed by: you have 1 month. WOW! I was up for the challenge and felt I could make it happen, because like my dad says “If it is to be, it is up to me”! I created 2 cheers for them to learn, one was in Spanish and another in English. I also made a dance for them to learn. They picked up the cheers very easily and it all went really well, until the dance came. Apparently my choreography was a little difficult but I was determined to make the girls the best and this choreography would do it. So apart from the Tuesday and Thursday practices I arranged for us to start practicing Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (keep in mind this was all in ONE month).

After a lot of hard work my girls did it! They pulled through and learned the dance in time for the big game! In preparation for the game we had a huge pep rally at my school on December 15th. It was definitely a flashback of America! We had cheerleading uniforms with pom–poms, there were posters hanging around (the cheerleaders made all of the postersJ), and everyone was screaming and shouting. The cheerleaders all were introduced along with the basketball players and we performed the two cheers they learned. Then later we threw out candy for everyone and they went crazy! It was a very successful pep rally! On December 21 we had the big game! When I got there I was amazed! There were mascots, more cheerleaders, drum lines and everything! It was amazing! Something I found extremely funny was the other cheerleaders singing the cheers from High School Musical and Bring it On. It was hilarious! But my cheerleaders did absolutely amazing and had the time of their lives! I am so happy that I was a part of that!

Some of the next things on my list of things to do are: 1. I am starting an Interact Club with a fellow Rotary member working in my school, 2. My principal has asked me to help her organize a prom. J haha! I really think my principal wishes we were in America!

SO CHRISTMAS! It honestly did not feel like anything at all for me. Christmas Eve I went to my grandparent’s house and we ate dinner and then I went to Midnight Mass with my grandmother. Christmas Day I went to my grandparent’s house again to eat and then I went to the circus with my best friend and her mom. The whole day the same thought ran through my mind and it was that I couldn’t believe it was Christmas! I guess it will feel more like Christmas on January 6th. Here in Spain they normally don’t celebrate Santa Claus coming. For them, the three wise men come with all of the gifts on January 6th. So hopefully then I will get my dose of Christmas from Spain. My amazing parents wrapped me all of my gifts from home and sent them to me, along with my aunt, my best friend Harrison Holmes, and also a family friend, Onie. I am loved! J

New Years is coming! I am getting ready to head to Sotillo (the town where we have a house) and we will stay there for 5 days until January 1st. The following day I am heading to the Canary Islands!!!!!!!!! J I will be there until January 10th and I cannot wait!!!!! J

So yeahhhh! That sums up my recent activities!  THANK YOU ROTARY, MY AMAZING PARENTS, AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE SUPPORTING ME AND MAKING THIS HAPPEN! You will not be disappointed! 

March 8 Journal

Hello everyone! I know it has been quite some time and I apologize! My plate has been very full, to say the least! So anyways we are going to pick up where I left off in the last journal. Therefore this journal starts with NEW YEARS and the CANARY ISLANDS! J

New Years was fantastic! We went to Sotillo where we had a very nice time like always! Everyone dressed up for New Years because it is something typical the townspeople do, but in the bigger cities they dress up very elegantly and go out with friends. We stayed there for those 5 days and then shortly after went to Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. My trip there was nothing short of amazing! It was beautiful, with clear watered beaches and with volcanoes! I saw a beach with black sand for the first time in my life and it was so cool. I went with my family so it gave us a great opportunity to bond. Being in the sun and in the beautiful beaches gave us a new type of happiness. (Especially after being in the cold snow and rain in Madrid.) So yeah, in Lanzarote I learned a lot about my family and they also learned many things about me, one of them being my crazy obsession of Chinese food. There happened to be 93827642398 million Chinese restaurants on the island, so we went to one almost every day we were there! I was in heaven! In Lanzarote I felt like I had first class service on the beach. On the beach there are people who walk around with coolers selling drinks/ice cream. So every time they passed me they always stopped to talk to me and gave me hand/feet and leg massages! My host family got a kick out of it, and of course I did too! But hey I’m not complaining over free massages! Also when I was there an amazing feeling came over me! As I was translating everything for my family I realized, I’M BILINGUAL, NO WAY! That is one awesome feeling! After realizing that, I was in complete happiness (and still am)!

So that was New Years and the Canary Islands! Shortly after, I went back to the town because we had the annual fiestas of Sotillo again! This was almost exactly the same as the other celebration in September. That weekend was really fun but extremely tiring! Part of the traditions were staying out in the bars all night. WOW. So we all went out with our families at 11:30 pm until about 5 am and then we went off with our friends to the caves until 12 am, and from that we went to a procession across the town and to church. It was overwhelming but a great experience!

Next story is about my phenomenal trip to LONDON! YAY! I went with my host parents and all 24 of their friends from the town! It was soooooo cool! London is beautiful and the movies can’t even capture all the beauty of it! I learned a lot of history about it and saw so many extravagant sights! Something so weird was being around everyone speaking in English! And as I was in Subway ordering my food, I began speaking in English, but when I saw the cashiers awkward face I realized I accidentally began speaking in Spanish! OOPS! It was so crazy! And I have come to the conclusion that I much prefer speaking in Spanish than in English. It might be a little problem when I get back home, oh well. So yes! LONDON=LOVELY and I really hope to go back some day!

So what’s going on with me now? Well, I am taking a little time to relax. I have gone two whole weekends without leaving Madrid! Whoah! I’m really prospering in the relationships I have here and I am reminded everyday of how much I am loved and how big of a difference I am making here. Some of the little relationships I have here that I couldn’t live without are with my best friend and her mommy, my host brother, the owner of a local supermarket, the owner of a local paper supply store, and the owner of the bar in the town.

My best friend and her mommy are my heroes! These girls are so strong! They especially remind me how much I am needed here in Spain, because they tell me every single day. They lost their husband/daddy in June and as you may imagine they still are sad, but they tell me that without me it would have been so much harder, because when I am with them I bring them so much happiness. So we have each other when times are tough! I actually go to their house everyday at 6 am to have a coffee with my mami (my best friends mom).

Next person, my host brother, Pabli! J That’s his nickname from me! He’s the cutest 12 year old boy in the whole wide world! We are really close and he opens up to me and asks me questions he can’t ask anyone else. We also fight and hit and punch each other, but it is all out of love! We are truly brothers and sisters now!

The next person on the list is the supermarket owner! His name is Lalo! He is awesome and has become to be like my father. He gives me advice on everything and always brings a smile to my face! So I always go to his supermarket to help out and I’m always talking with the customers! Being there so much has allowed me to make relationships with many people, for example, I know everyone who works there and we are all like family!

His supermarket is right next to the paper supply store which is how I met my role model, the owner. She is the most patient and kindest person on this Earth. I always go there and she gives me a coffee and candy. I also help her out by putting prices on things and making photo copies for the customers! I have also met so many people from being there. I go there every day except Sunday. She is like my teacher and when I’m there I read to her in Spanish and she corrects me, and later gives me homework! But when she gives me my Spanish homework she has to do the same exact thing in English, so we help each other.

Last but not least is the owner of the bar in Sotillo! She is so sweet! I think I have mentioned before that she has a picture of us hanging in the bar with my flag and she wears my pins every day. She was one of the first people I met in Spain and helped me A LOT because she speaks English. SO THAT’S IT! Sorry for going on, but I owe it to you all after slacking so much!

Anywho! I am counting down the days until I go to Hungary for Easter! I get to see my best friend in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, Monika Ignacz! For the future outbound students, Monika was a Hungarian exchange student in my house the past year. She lived with me for 9 months and is my best friend. I don’t know where I would be without her, or our “matchmaker” Rotary Youth Exchange. This program sparks so many possibilities and opportunities and we are so lucky to have access to them! I have already confronted so many new adventures I could never encounter in the United States, and have learned so much about other countries, but most importantly myself! This year makes you look back on your old life and you learn many things about yourself, good and bad. I don’t know how it has affected the other exchange students but it has sure made me want to start a new life and become a new me!

That is about it for now guys! I hope you can all see how much this exchange means to all of us outbounds, and I am so jealous of you all because my exchange is almost over! My advice to you all is to practice your language (if you have a better grasp on it, it will take you less time trying to learn it in the country, which takes a lot of time away from meeting people and making great relationships)! Stay positive in your exchange and be strong in the hard times because everyone is rooting for you! You will not regret your decision to be an exchange student!  I can’t thank you enough Rotary for every door you have opened for me. I am trying my hardest to make you all proud!

Sarah M’s Bio

I am constantly asked “Why would you want to be an exchange student? You don’t even know the people you’re going to live with, that’s so weird.” Or “They don’t even speak English, why would you want to live in a country that doesn’t even speak English?” Or my favorite, “Belgium? Why of all places would you want to go to Belgium?”

I guess normal people wouldn’t really understand. I think that you have to be a very special person to be an exchange student. That is something that I and all the other outbounds share. I am constantly told how crazy I am to leave everything I know behind and go to an unfamiliar place to live for a year. I guess I’m crazy then because that is exactly what I want to do.

Anyways, Bonjour, my name is Sarah May. I am currently 16 and excited to spend my 17th in Belgium. I am a sophomore at Yulee High School in little Yulee, Florida. I am the first outbound from Yulee, I think that is pretty sweet. J I live with my Step mom Dana and my younger brothers Jackson (7) and Mason (5). My dad is currently serving our country in Iraq. I spend most weekends with my Mom, my Step dad John, and my little sister Amanda (11). I also have an older brother Jonathan who is in college right now.

I like to go to the beach, hang out with my friends, and my big passion is photography. It’s something I really enjoy and I know I will be able to take beautiful pictures in Belgium. I also love to sing and I am a computer nerd. I love to design websites and stuff like that. I am pretty involved with school. I am actually the sophomore class president this year.

This will not be my 1st, 2nd, or even 6th time out of the country but, my SEVENTH. My mom is originally from Sweden so we visit every three years. I have also been to Norway, Denmark, and Germany. I swear that traveling is in my blood. I have family all over the world including Sweden, Norway, China and Australia. I can’t wait until the day when I say that Belgium is my home.

I can not thank Rotary enough for making this possible for me. After those horrid interviews you guys put me through, the tears I cried, and the hope I lost but, in the end look where all that has gotten me, a position in the outbound 09-10 school year. I also can’t thank my mom enough for pushing me and helping pursue my dreams to be an exchange student. Also my dad and the rest of my family for supporting me.

I know that my life is going to change more than it already has and I can’t wait to arrive in Belgium, grab me a Belgian waffle, and write my first journal about how great it is. 

 Sarah M’s Journals

August 25 Journal

Writing has never been easy for me. I have so much to say, so many stories to tell, but it’s so difficult to put it all into words. I have been dreading writing this journal, but after 2 hours, a “cahier”, and a writer’s cramp this journal is what you get. I always have to handwrite anything before I type it so it’s been a nice long process for just this one journal entry.

The last 10 months of my life have revolved around ROTARY ROTARY ROTARY. I’ve applied to be an exchange student, I’ve gone through those wretched interviews, I’ve gotten accepted, I’ve found out I’m going to Belgium, I’ve been to Orientation and met 72 new AMAZING people, I’ve been to my sponsor club’s Wednesday afternoon luncheons, I’ve written a 12 page essay all about Belgium (more like 30 page), I’ve given speeches in French ( or at least attempted), I’ve been to Daytona to do a community service project for District 6970 (the best district of course ), I’ve attempted to teach myself the beautiful French language (but failed miserably), I’ve explained to people what being a foreign exchange student is and that no, Belgium is not in Africa, it’s in Europe sandwiched between the Netherlands and France, I’ve gone through Cultural Boot Camp, I’ve gone to going away parties (even ALL the way in Vero Beach- I love you Brandon!!) and going home parties for last year’s inbounds (who I miss so much), I’ve counted down the days until I’d leave ( I even had a countdown on my phone), I’ve gone to the airport to welcome this year’s inbounds, I’ve gone to St. Augustine and hung out with the outbounds in D6970,and I’ve said those hard “See Ya Laters.”

Now reality has come into play, and right now I am in my back yard laying in the luscious green grass soaking up the last bit of summer sun in my “petite” village of 200 people in Villette, France. Wait, France? You’re probably thinking, “Wait, I thought she was an outbound to Belgium…?” Well I am, and I do live in France. You see here there isn’t a border really separating Belgium and France, just a little blue sign that says “France” that is barley visible. I am nearly 3 or 4 miles from Belgium, and I go to school in Belgium and my host parents work in Belgium. If you were here and saw it then you would more understand what I am talking about. How I am allowed to do this, I don’t know. My host parents talk about it, but it’s not like I can understand them…..YET.

I have been here for 10 short days now. It doesn’t feel like it at all. Time is already starting to fly by, but didn’t they warn us about that? Well I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

Friday, August 14th I woke up at 5am with no emotions, it felt just like any other normal day. I kept thinking to myself “How could I not be feeling any emotions? Why was this not feeling real to me that in 3 hours I’d be boarding my plane setting off on this great adventure?” Everything was packed, everything was loaded into the truck, IT WAS TIME TO GO TO THE AIRPORT!! I took some “last” family pictures, said goodbye to my kitties and my sister in law and off we went. I still wasn’t sad, I wasn’t scared, I was nothing, but excited! We got to the airport, my bags were overweight so we had some adjusting to do, got my boarding passes, and now it was time to go! If you have ever been to the Jacksonville Airport then you understand the lack of places to eat, so my last American breakfast was a nice greasy chicken biscuit from Burger King and an Icee of course J

Then it was time to say “see you later” to my American family and friends. Still I hadn’t cried all morning, and I honestly don’t think that I would have cried if it wasn’t for seeing my best friends crying and of course my mommy and my little sister. The tears just weren’t coming out anymore, but I forced out tears so it didn’t seem like I was completely heartless. We did our last group hug for a year, and then it was off to go through security. One of the security guys did compliment my “nice” Rotary blazer J

I got onto my flight with my stuffed purple unicorn Deuce, my Rotary blazer, my Rotary smile, and a few tears running down my face. Now I was off to Washington DC, Au Revoir Florida. The flight went by very quickly mainly because I was asleep the whole hour and a half, haha.

For some reason the gate number wasn’t posted on the boarding pass, but I soon got a phone call from Andrea (also going to Belgium) asking where I was because she had just also arrived. As we were walking around we met up with two other exchangers, Louis from Virginia, and Kassie from Pennsylvania, who I have been talking to online now for the past 6 months. We ate at a little airport restaurant called Moe’s and had Caesar salads as our last American meal, yummmmy. Then another exchanger, Sarah from New York, called me, I found her, and she joined along also. It was now 12pm and we still had 6 hours left until our flight for Brussels. Of course being the friendly Rotary Youth Exchange Student that I am, I ran around that airport (figuratively) looking for blue Rotary blazers and scared faces. Every time I saw one I walked up to them and said “You’re going to Belgium right, with Rotary?? All the exchangers are waiting at gate D5.” I’m sure their first impression of me is that I am a little bit crazy, but oh well. J

Around 5pm there were at least 30 garcons and filles sitting in a circle in those nice Rotary blazers, trading pins, business cards, and asking what city they were going to be living in for the next year of our lives.

I am 100% sure that those kids are my new lifetime best friends. Sure, I have only met them once, and I barely know anything about them, but those 6 hours that we did spend together was indescribable bonding time. They know exactly how I feel, exactly what I am going though, and understand why I am doing this exchange and support me, because they are doing it for the same exact reason. It’s not like my friends back home where I talk about it and they have no care in the world about what’s going on in Belgium, where Belgium is, or what I am going to be doing in Belgium.

Then the time came to say Au Revoir Amerique, Bonjour Belgique. I made my last phone calls to my best friend Joelene, my friend Eric, and my mommy. Our boarding passes were scanned and then we were on that huge plane. The exchange students were pretty spread out all over the plane, but I was lucky enough to be sitting next to Claire, one of my favorite Belgian inbounds. It was kind of pointless honestly; being both of us slept pretty much the whole 7 and a half hour flight. I did wake up once and got the chance to watch The Soloist, in French of course, but I would love to see it again in a year when I actually know what is going on.

Our plane landed into Brussels, passports in hand, got them stamped in immigration, this was it. That’s when my friend Louis goes, “Well I guess that this is it, there is no turning back, and we are officially here in Belgique.” He was right, and it got me thinking again, “Why hasn’t this hit me? I still feel like it hasn’t hit me that I am going to be gone for a whole year.”

After a nice long wait, I finally got my luggage, waited on a few exchangers and then it was time to go see our host families. I can’t even begin to explain to you how I was feeling at this point. Just imagine that you are the pop star getting out of your limo to a huge movie premier. All of those fans are blocked behind those huge silver metal gates. That is how it was like at the Brussels airport Saturday morning, hundreds of people yelling in various languages, holding up huge welcome signs, and big smiles on their faces. I was completely in awe, looking quickly for my host family before I was about to have a heart attack. I then spotted my host sister Adelaide, smiling and waving. I quickly rushed to her, we both looked like we were about to burst into tears, her because of excitement, me because I was still scared out of my mind. I was greeted by the traditional kiss on the cheek, bonjour, and ca va? We stopped and got drinks at the airport café, I got Coca Cola while everyone else got coffee. Two guys where there from my host club, Rotary Club of Virton. According to them, all Americans drink is Coke, everyday all the time, but I did correct him, because at my house in America my mom won’t buy anything that isn’t Zephyrhills bottled water or milk.

Then was the car ride home. I would say that it was awkward, but jet lag got the best of me and I slept the whole 4 hour drive home. We did stop at my host dad’s brothers house where I met 3 lovely little host cousins that are just about the cutest little girls on the planet.

We got home around late afternoon where I got my suitcases upstairs into the spare bedroom because I will be using Adelaide’s room once she leaves for Canada on Thursday morning. They then prepared some food, even though I was anything but hungry. We ate some noodles, with what I want to say was shrimp – it didn’t look very appetizing so I didn’t ask what it was, but it did turn out to be tasty.

I then wanted to take a shower and go to bed. I took a nap for a couple of hours and then was awoken and greeted by another man from the Rotary Club of Virton, who thought I was from Mississippi, shows how much he knows….. He came to talk to Adelaide about Canada and then about my trip to Brussels next weekend. He had some pretty rockin’ hair, so I will always remember him, just not his name. haha.

Then they surprised me with even more food, some kind of meat, cooked tomatoes with mozzarella, and baked potatoes. It was delicious, but I didn’t finish, all I wanted to do was sleep, so that is what I did the rest of the night.

The next day I didn’t wake up until about noon, and by then my host family wanted me to go meet family. My first host family has SO MUCH family it’s unreal. I don’t remember any of their names, I don’t plan on memorizing EVERYONE’S names because there are just SO MANY. I went to another little village around here for the day where my host grandma and grandpa live. They all drank beer, ate food, played music, and asked me a million questions about Florida. I went to a little museum in the village where apparently way, way, way, back in the day it was the house of some family. It was very interesting and I’m glad I went and my tour guide was Adelaide so I understood every word. There was also an old castle there that was all torn down because somebody had bought it out, but they let me go look. It was neat. I then got to see a French baptism which was interesting and different.

The following day we went to a bigger town in France, where I went to the grocery store for the first time. It’s pretty similar and it makes me laugh when they have the same things as they do in America like Peanut M&M’s and Cocoa Puffs. When we got home we had a nice lunch and my younger sister Elore, took out a game called Triominos (like Dominos) where they made me say the numbers in French every time someone laid down one. Let’s just say now I can count to 20 in French with no problem. J I also got to tour my school that day. CNDB is so big. It’s 3 stories, if I remember right and it’s really old. It has plants growing all over it; it’s the most beautiful school I have ever seen. I can’t wait to actually start next Thursday. Later that night, my host family showed me around the village. I will argue with ANYONE, this is the most beautiful place in the world. There are no words to describe it, no pictures can show its beauty, and you just have to see it for yourself.

Tuesday morning we went to France and went shopping for shoes, clothes, food, pretty much anything for Adelaide before she left for Canada on Thursday. That was the day that I got to be in 3 countries in a mere 3 seconds. I got to be in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg all at the same time. It was so great. That night I got to meet my host mom’s sister and her family. I have two cousins, Louise and Odlie. They both will be going to my school so I am excited that I know some people already. It was a very emotional night because they were saying goodbye to Adelaide.

Wednesday we went into Virton. I love the city. There are so many more people than in my little village. It’s a very small city though, some shops but not many, a few bars, and a paper mill. That was the day I got to try the famous Belgian Fries. My family said that they were the best in Belgium, so of course I was so excited to try them. I found out that day that those are not the best in the world, and I was hoping not the best in Belgium because they were disgusting. That night we drove to Waterloo to spend the night at my host mom’s brother’s house because it is closer to the Brussels airport than here and we had to be there at 4 in the morning.

Thursday, we went to the airport, said goodbye to Adelaide, and that was it. My English translator was gone. Now I will have no choice, but to speak French. To get things off everyone’s mind my host family took me to a small Belgian zoo which I loved. It’s nothing like an American zoo. The animals have a lot more space to roam and it doesn’t even really look like a zoo. It was weird seeing a zebra in a forest, but it was a nice experience. I fell in love with a monkey that was glued to the glass window when I walked up. We then went to the city where my host dad lived for a few years back in his 20’s. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL and IT WAS A CITY!! I was so excited. They took me out for ice cream (Belgium ice cream is the BEST) and then we went and looked at a huge castle that the city was built around.

Friday we again went to town in France (we do this practically every day) where I got to wander the French streets with my younger host sister Elore who doesn’t speak any English. She pointed to EVERYTHING as I repeated in French. It was such a beautiful day and we took a million pictures as we waited for my host mom to get done with her patient. We ate pizza and went home. When my host dad got home from work he handed me this white box with a yellow ribbon on it. IT WAS BELGIAN CHOCOLATE. It is so rich, it’s so good, and Hershey’s doesn’t even come close. Anyone who hasn’t eaten Belgian chocolate doesn’t REALLY know what chocolate tastes like, believe me. That night we drove to a little village that’s the last village in Belgium before you drive into France. It’s apparently really famous. It’s known for its yellow brick houses with red roofs. There is this fountain in the middle of the square where women go to wash their clothes. It’s really nifty. It was chilly that night (like every night), but it was so amazing. I LOVE going on long walks right as the sun goes down. I think it’s my favorite part about Belgium so far.

Friday I had to go and register my visa so that I won’t get deported or something. There were A LOT of complications because of the fact that I live in France not Belgium. They were arguing in French for what seemed like hours, and I was getting scared that they were going to make me switch host families THE FIRST WEEK I GOT THERE. Turns out everything was okay and I won’t have to switch families until January. Afterwards my host family took me French bowling. It is SOOO different than American bowling and I suck really, really bad at it. The balls are WAY smaller and they don’t have any holes to put your fingers. The lanes are VERY narrow and get bigger as you get closer to the pins. I have no idea who won, but it certainly wasn’t me. My ball landed in the next lane plenty of times. It was embarrassing, but everyone got a good laugh out of it and it’s a memory I’ll hold on to forever. They took me out to dinner that night for the first time. We went to a pizzeria. Of course I couldn’t understand anything on the menus so I stuck with just a cheese and ham pizza. The pizza was so amazing, but HUGE. They then ordered me this HUGE ice cream. There were these drunken French men at the table next to us who were laughing and yelling so loud. It was the funniest thing EVER and we couldn’t stop laughing. It was definitely the funniest night.

Saturday we went into Virton and I got to see my other host cousins, Titouan and Glynis. We all walked around Virton, got some drinks, and then went to my host grandma’s place (she lives with Nuns) and visited with her. It was a nice afternoon.

Sunday night I went to my 2nd host families’ house for dinner. I love them so much. They are so nice and welcoming. They make fun of me because I ate with a jacket and a blanket while everyone else thought the weather was nice. They said I’m going to just LOVE winter. I love their sarcasm.

Today I spent the day with my 2nd host family while my host mom and dad went to work, because I didn’t want to sit at the house alone and stay on the computer all day. I watched Hannah Montana in French with my youngest host sister. She is so adorable and always hugs me and says “You’re so beautiful.” My host dad speaks perfect English so I am able to communicate with him well. They are so interested in me and want to know everything about me. They showed me my unfinished room, and around their HUGE house. My host sister Chloe will be in my class in school, she is so nice. I love my 2nd host family so much, just as much as my first. I am going back tomorrow to spend the day with them which I can’t wait.

Tomorrow the other American exchange student arrives and I couldn’t be any happier. I have talked to her online and she seems SO nice. I am going to my 3rd host family (her 1st) on Friday to spend the night with them. We have to wake up early to go to Brussels for our first big Rotary meeting. I can’t wait to see all the exchange students again. It’s going to be such a fun weekend.

The language: French is extremely difficult. I wish that I would’ve studied more before I left yes, but at the same time I’m glad I didn’t. I think that learning the language while you are there makes the experience more exciting and yes very frustrating. If I already knew French then I wouldn’t get to play all the cute games my host family plays with me and I wouldn’t get to bond with my host mom as we do hours of French lessons out of a book. Yes, I get frustrated when I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m trying, and by the end of this year I WILL be fluent in French, I have no doubts.

The food: I don’t like the food much here. It’s too strong for my stomach. I take 3 bites and I’m full. I try to finish my plates they make me but it just doesn’t happen. I try everything just to be nice and if it looks gross I don’t ask what it is. Oh and the French seem to LOVE potatoes and tomatoes. I eat them with every meal!

Homesickness: Yes, actually the first night I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here. It was weird being in someone else’s home, who I didn’t know, taking a shower, eating meals, and sleeping in their house. I quickly got over it. It’s not easy, it’s actually the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I know that I am here for a reason. I know that Rotary wouldn’t have gone through all that hard work to get me here if they didn’t think that I was ready for it. Now if they offered me a plane ticket back home right now would I go? Absolutely not. It took me a week to realize that I shouldn’t be thinking about “home” and how much I’d rather be there right now because right now this is my home, this is where I live, and this is my family. I couldn’t be any more grateful because I’m experiencing the best year of my life.

Oh yeah so in Belgium:

EVERYONE sucks at driving. I feel like I am going to die every day when I get into the car. I think they have speed limits, but NOBODY follows them.

Anyone who thinks that everyone in Belgium speaks English is WAY wrong. Nobody does and even if they do they won’t speak it with you. (which I’m glad)

I have been fooled. It has been perfect weather in Belgium every day since I’ve gotten here, until today.

They don’t eat little meals. No actually they take HUGE portions and then they eat 2nds and 3rds. I never even finish my 1st helping and they always think that I don’t like the food. It’s not that I just can’t handle THAT much food.

Belgium has the BEST waffles and chocolate in the world everyone was right.

The cars are EXTREMELY tiny; I even saw a smart car sports car.

Apparently in Florida alligators walk the streets, according to the Belgians.

— Peace&Love;

Sarah May

December 8 Journal

It’s just another normal day in Belgique, it’s cold, it’s drizzling, and the sun is nowhere to be found. It’s the 8th of Decembre which means I’ve been away from home for almost 4 months now. They weren’t kidding when they said that time was going to fly by. I don’t understand why I ever thought that a year was such a long time to be away from my home, my family & my friends; it’s not nearly enough time now that I’m here. Life here is starting to become normal and sometimes I feel like I’ve been living here my whole life, but don’t be fooled – I am still overwhelmed and confused all the time.

So much has happened since last time I wrote a journal. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said I’d write a journal every two weeks … that’s impossible … as if I have the time. I know how it feels to be the next outbound eagerly awaiting the next journal of the person who’s in your country of your choice, so I can’t put this off much longer for those of you who want to come on exchange to this unbelievable country. If I tried to tell you everything that has happened in the last 3 months in detail you’d be reading this forever … and … ever, and as much as I want to be typing all day you can just look at the pictures and see for yourself all the wonderful things I’ve been doing here.

As for the language, it was honestly the biggest slap in the face for me. I don’t know what I was thinking coming to a country only knowing about 3 words of their language. It’s been the biggest struggle for me, but I’ve made it a long way. Before I came here I always put off learning my French. I really didn’t care and had absolutely no interest in learning the French language. Now that I hear, breathe, and speak French all day every day I have absolutely fallen in love with it. I wish that I could tell you that I am fluent and I’m speaking so well all the time, but then I’d be lying. It’s still difficult for me to keep a steady conversation but I know enough to speak to my host family and friends. I have an amazing French teacher outside of school that I see once a week while my host sister does swimming lessons. She has helped me so much and I am so thankful that I have her. Some days I feel like I will never be fluent in French but I just have to keep reminding myself that I won’t be fluent overnight. All the flash cards, the workbook pages, and the mp3s on my iPod will pay off by the end. New outbounds, LISTEN TO AL & DAPHNE OR ANYONE who pushes you to learn as much of the language as you can before you get here. I promise that they are not just telling you that for kicks and giggles.

School is, well, school. I don’t like it for the most part. The majority of my day is spent working out of the French workbook my mom bought me to use BEFORE I left, but never touched. The teachers don’t give me work anymore because I can’t do it. I actually am doing exams this week and I took religion and French today, talk about impossible. I am actually in class with kids that are 3 years younger than me. They put me in them because my host sister in my second family is in my classes. Thankfully they also put me in classes with kids my age and I will be switching to them in January once my oldies leave to go back to South Africa and Australia. :[

I got pretty lucky when it came to schools. I have two oldies, Joshua & Marezaan, who have been nothing but amazing and I absolutely adore them. It kills me that they are leaving me now in less than a month to go back home. I’ll miss you guys so much<3 I also have 3 other Americans at my school. Kelsey with Rotary, James with ASF, and Bond with WEP (YES THEIR NAME’S ARE JAMES AND BOND 😀 ) Bond is only a one semester exchange and leaves in 3 weeks. It’s going to be hard without him around.

The first day of school for me was definitely the worse day of my life. DON’T expect for everyone to talk to you, THEY WONT, but they will stare at you, point at you, and throw stuff at you (which I still don’t understand.) I’m making more and more Belgian friends the more French I speak with them. The only thing that really bothers me about the kids I go to school with is that I am constantly compared to Renee (outbound last year). They all think that I am going to be JUST like Renee and I have to tell them that I am not at all. We are two totally different people & this is my year to show them that. Besides that, I have three days left until Christmas break and I couldn’t be any more excited!!

Belgium has proved me wrong. Don’t be disappointed in your country assignment like I was. I always thought “What does Belgium REALLY have to offer me?” Even if I haven’t seen the sun in three months and my ugg boots are ruined from the everyday downpour, I have fallen in love with this tiny tiny tiny country that I am proud to call home. I love Virton even if it is out in the middle of nowhere and far away from all the other exchange students. I was put in this tiny “city” for a reason and I’m glad. I’m not used to seeing tractors driving down the main roads everyday back home and the 100000 million cows you I see every day here.

About a month ago I went on a Rotex (rotary) trip to LONDON!!! It was with 75 other exchange students in Belgium and it had to be the best 4 days of my entire life. We went to Madame Toussaud’s Wax Museum which was so awesome. We went to Windsor Castle, Canterbury, and Hard Rock Café. Then on Saturday they gave us the whole day to spend by ourselves and explore the city of London. The trip really made me bond with the other exchange students and I made so many new friends from different countries. It was also nice to speak English with everyone and those accents are just so beautiful.

Recently the other American at my school and myself planned a Thanksgiving feast for our host families. Our host families are always asking us to show them part of our culture and we thought why don’t we share with them one of our really important American holidays. We prepared ALL of the food ourselves, we had a 7 kilo turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, Bourbon chocolate pecan pie, homemade pumpkin pie, fried corn, garlic mashed potatoes, and so much more!! It was really nice and it brought all of us closer to our families. It’s defiantly a Thanksgiving I will never forget.

Also last weekend my 1st and 3rd host families took me and Kelsey (the other American) to the FRENCH ALPS!!!!!!! We went to go skiing, but that didn’t end up happening because there wasn’t enough snow which really sucked, BUT I did get to see snow for the first time and man oh man do I love the snow (I won’t be getting much of that in Florida!). We also went to a candy factory which made the BEST candy ever. St. Nicholas also came on Sunday morning. It’s a Belgian holiday and it’s mainly for little kids. St. Nicholas comes and fills up your table with candies, mandarin oranges, and toys. We got a lot of candy!! It was an amazing trip and I’m glad that our host families took us.

Rotary is truly the best thing that has ever happened to me. All the exchange students that I’ve met that are with different programs always talk about how jealous they are with how much Rotary does with us. I have met some people from all over the world whom I can’t believe I’ve lived without these past 17 years of my life and who have changed me and how I view the world. I have best friends from states I’d probably never visit before this, a best friend in Mexico, Australia, and South Africa. I don’t think I could ever say thank you enough to Rotary, my host family & my family back home for all the support, and of course my wonderful mommy who has done everything humanly possible to make this year happen for me. Merci beaucoup!!!!

January 16 Journal

It’s 2010 and I am officially 5 months into my exchange as of today. I am not sure where the time is going, but I have learned to accept the fact that this whole exchange thing is going to go by quickly just like Rotary has told us. Time doesn’t stop for anybody and that’s the truth.

I have changed drastically in the past month and I have really noticed it. It has definitely been the worst, hardest, and most eye opening past month of my exchange and maybe even my life. I have done things and have not done things here that I am not really proud of. I have let not only my family here and over the ocean and my Rotary clubs down but myself. I have failed to do what I came over here to do.

December 23rd, 2009. I was told that day I had to take a French test for my Rotary district here in Belgium. It didn’t go well; no actually in the words of Rotary Belgium it went “catastrophic”. I didn’t even know how to react. All I wanted to do was give up and come home back to Florida. I didn’t want to be here. I felt like I was just a failure and an embarrassment to myself, Rotary, and my families.

Here is some advice to the new outbounds: STUDY YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. I don’t think that I can stress that enough. I came to Belgium knowing about “Bonjour” and “Merci.” I spent the last 4 months of my exchange struggling, struggling so bad. Yes of course I had progressed since when I first got there. Four months in I could understand French. I could listen to a conversation and understand everything; it was just one thing….speaking. I couldn’t speak, no I could, but wouldn’t. I wasn’t confident. I didn’t want to be laughed at for mistakes. So I just didn’t speak.

I was told by my district here in Belgium I had 6 weeks to improve my speaking drastically or they would send me home back to Florida, no if’s ands, or buts. I was told by Rotary that every day for the next six weeks I have to: read out loud for an hour a day with my host family, watch an hour of TV with my host family, and I am now required to email my counselor EVERYDAY telling him what I have done that day, what I have read in a magazine, and what I have watched on TV every night. It is such a hassle. I find myself now having absolutely no time to relax. I now take 3 French classes, 2 outside of school and one replacing an hour of my Religion class which occupies most of my week. I feel so overwhelmed by the French language and I am speaking like never before. I have no time to think about my family, friends, life back home in Florida and I honestly have no desire to talk to them. I thought it was so hard to leave home, but really it has been the easiest part of this whole exchange process so far. Don’t get me wrong – I miss and love my family back home so much, but it wasn’t worth talking to them almost every day and ruining the time I was supposed to be here engaging in the Belgian culture and spending it with a family who truly tried so hard to make me happy and comfortable in their home. I can’t go back now. It is the past and yes, I regret it every single day. Now I am making up for the lost time. I am NOT giving up. I am NOT getting sent home in February and I am going to show Rotary back in Florida and in Belgium that I can do this and I will.

A little look at the past.

December 24th, 2009. We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve with my host mom’s sister and her family. We all got dressed up nicely, talked, and opened presents. Everything was ca va until my host parents daughter in Canada called crying because she was homesick. Of course I was homesick, extremely, but I kept it to myself so everyone in my family would be ok. Then my host mom started crying so I started crying. Now the whole house had such a sad vibe. I called my mom and cried and cried and cried. I just wanted to be home with my family. No, they weren’t doing anything special for Christmas, we never really do, it was just the fact that I wanted to be with my family. After all the crying everyone was ok and happy. I knew that I couldn’t just sulk around; it was my ONLY Christmas in Belgium so I had to make it worth remembering. We ate some of the best soup I have ever eaten in my life. They wouldn’t tell me what kind of soup it was until I had finished eating it. They made me guess…not chicken, not fish, not cat, not dog, not horse, but…..FROG. I really didn’t care because it was so delicious. I will definitely forever love frog meat!

December 28, 2009. I changed host families. I didn’t think that it would really be all that sad to say goodbye to my host family because they only live 10 minutes down the road, but it was so hard. The whole day everyone was really quiet. My host sister wouldn’t leave her bedroom and all I did was pack. I packed my 2 suitcases FULL, I had around 8 boxes and bags. How am I ever going to get any of this home? I went to my host grandparent’s house and said my goodbyes. I will miss those cute old people. When I arrived at my new house my bedroom was occupied by a German man for the week, so ALL my stuff was put into one of my host sister’s room. Poor girl.

The next day Brandon came to visit from Sweden. My best friend Kelsey, my host sister Chloe and I took the 3 hour train ride to Bruxelles to pick him up. Even though it was raining (like always) we showed Brandon around Bruxelles. We took the 3 hour train ride home, played cards, listened to music, and of course took pictures.

New Year Eve came around and there were SO many people at my house. There were 2 men from France and one of their 16 year old sons, an Italian man from Switzerland, the German man, and some family friends from around here. We ate Swiss cheese fondue for dinner and the rest of the night consisted of dancing until around 4 AM. I skyped with my mom right as the clock struck midnight. There was confetti everywhere, people screaming “bonne annee”, everyone kissing, and still more dancing. I passed the laptop around and everyone said “bonne annee” to my mom and sister. The words of my little sister “You have a crazy host family” and yes that is a true fact.

January 2nd, 2010. My district here in Belgium had planned a Rotary activity to visit a city on the other side of the country to Bruges which is in the Flemish speaking side of the country. It took us almost 4 hours to get there by train, it was cold, and I was sad because it was the last time I would see a lot of my exchange student friends from the southern hemisphere. Bruges was absolutely beautiful. Brandon didn’t even spend 5 minutes with me that day. He went out and made his own friends. It was really good for him because now he has even more exchange student friends from different countries.

The month of January has been so upsetting in so many ways. Goodbye has never been so hurtful. I have had to say goodbye to the people who have taught me everything there is to know about the exchange life in Belgium. Their year is up and it’s time for them to go back home to their home countries. Knowing that I could never see some of these people ever again is so heartbreaking but like my host mom has been telling me after I’ve come home from school crying a few times these past few weeks “C’est la vie Sarah.” I want to thank Joshua Grech my brother from Australia, Te Aki Moore my sister from New Zealand, and Mareezan Myburgh my sister from South Africa for changing my life and helping me through the hardest parts of my exchange while nobody else knew how I felt. I love you!

My new host family couldn’t be any more amazing. I feel so at home with them. They don’t have a son or daughter out on exchange; they just wanted to host me, so now there are 4 girls living at this house. I have 3 younger host sisters: Chloe 15, Juliette 12, and Clemence 10. They treat me just like a sister. They argue with me, they help me with my French, they are constantly telling me I’m “tres belle et gentil.” My host dad does speak fluent English which comes in handy when I need to ask something really important that I don’t know how to explain in French. My host mom is the craziest women I have ever met. She is so loud and crazy and is ALWAYS on her feet. I have never seen that woman rest this whole month I have been living in their house. I love this family and I can’t wait for Chloe to come on exchange in Florida in a few years and live with me (I am trying to convince her that Florida is better than New Zealand). I am excited to spend two more months with the Denis! (:

I stepped on the scale the other day and “error” popped up, good thing my host parent’s told me the scale was broken….even though I know for a fact I have put on a good 15 pounds these past 5 months! Looks like it’s time for me to go a diet….yeah right…when you live in Belgium you eat frites and chocolate ALL THE TIME!!

I want to say congrats to all the outbound class of 2010-2011. You guys have no idea what you have just got yourself into. August may seem far away now, but I promise it will FLY by. Before you know it you will be at the airport in your nifty Rotary blazer saying “seeya later” to your American family for a year. STUDY YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE, DO YOUR RESEARCH PAPER, STUDY YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE, STUDY YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE, oh wait and did I mention STUDY YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE.

I want to give a HUGE shout out to the lovely Daphne Cameron for giving me the encouragement to move on from the hard time I am having right now and having faith in me. She is the reason that I am here in Belgium and I have so many thanks for her. She is truly my inspiration and I won’t let her down! Thanks Daph!

I am having the absolute time of my life, getting fat, learning French, making friends, changing, and living the life. Thanks Rotary, thanks mommy, thanks everyone for the love and support.

à bientôt!

May 5 Journal

Coucou,

9 weeks from today I’ll be flying in the air crossing the Atlantic Ocean, but this time even more upset and scared then I was back on August 14th, 2009. Of course I think about going home and how wonderful it will be to see all my friends, see all of my family, driving my car, the beach, and the Florida sunshine and heat. It all sounds so wonderful…but is it really? The thought of leaving this country makes me sick. This is no longer Belgium, the country I will spend a year in, but home. I’ve had a truly challenging exchange and I wouldn’t change it for anything. Since I haven’t written a journal since January 16th there is a lot for you to catch up on.

I don’t want my journal to be extremely long so here is a little recap of all the things I’ve been up to:

February 5th: I visited the actual European Parliament with over 250 exchange students from around the world.

February 12th: The night of my Bal des Rhetos. It was a huge dance that my school organized to raise money for our class trip! It was a huge success with 1k + people!

February 18th-20th: I visited the crazy city of Amsterdam with Rotary! Of course it was amazing. I got to visit the famous Red Light District, the Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank’s House, and many other museums.

March 13th: I visited the city of Luxembourg in the tiny country of Luxembourg with Rotary. We took a tour bus around the city and learned about the city and how much that little country impacts Europe. It was awesome hearing people speak English!

March 19th-21st: I visited La Mer du Nord with my host family! It was such a great weekend to get away from work, school, cell phones, the internet, and just bond. Even if the Belgian beach is NOTHING like the beautiful Florida beaches, it was still nice to experience it (even if I did feel like I was at the beach during a hurricane haha).

March 25th-29th: I visited the amazing country of CROATIA (yes, that’s right…CROATIA!!) with my school. It was one of the best weeks on my exchange because I got to bond so so so well with the kids in my class. Normally during school they are too busy doing school work so this gave us a great opportunity to get to know each other. It was a time I will NEVER forget.

March 30th & 31st: Oh yeah and we also visited Venice, Italy! Talk about the most beautiful city in the world minus all the tourist mess.

April 5th-15th: I spent the Easter holidays in well….GREECE! It was a Rotary trip of 11 days…we visited cities like Athens, Delphi, Olympia, and a few others! I honestly think I am the luckiest girl on the planet earth to have visited Greece this year…it was so great.

April 24th: I went to Bruxelles and visited the Atomium and Mini Euorpe for the first time with Rotary!

May 1st: It was the birthday party of my 3rd host mom and sister! There was about 75 people there, mostly family, and it was so awesome to meet all the new family!

May 2nd: I visited Belgium’s amusement park “Walibi” with the Rotex! Even if it rained pretty much the whole day, that wasn’t going to stop me from having the time of my life. It was pretty sad because it was the last Rotex activity for the year!

A lot of the future outbounds always ask me if I am fluent in French yet and when I reply no, most of them are in extreme shock. 9 months ago I stepped off that airplane confused when my host sister asked me a simple “ca va?” Over these past 9 months my brain has gone through something it’s never gone through before, it’s taken a twist and has struggled to learn this language of love. It’s taken ALL and when I say ALL I mean ALL that I’ve got to get to where I am today. I understand the majority of what people say to me. Never do I ask for someone to tell me the word in English – instead for them to explain it to me in French. I’ve come accustomed to the phrase explique moi stp. I’ve advanced from children’s books to novels such as Fascination aka Twilight. I no longer watch French films with subtitles. I dream in French. Think in French. Write in French. Breathe in French. Live in French. Rotary tells you that you should come back to America fluent in your host country’s language. Then again what is exactly considered fluent? I understand, I speak, I sing, I write, etc. in French, but I still have a LONG way to go. I still have a vocabulary to build. I still have conjugations to master. I still have a terrible accent to work on. So fluent? It’s such a vague word and for me I’m satisfied and happy where I am. I came from knowing NOTHING, to being where I am today, that’s a HUGE accomplishment.

I have been through SO much on my exchange. Things I don’t honestly care to share with the world. This year has challenged me in every possible way. I have changed so much. I am nowhere near the same person I was 9 months ago. I have found out who I really am by coming here. I don’t want to share all of my mistakes with you as I have already shared one big one, because I want you to experience your own year. I want you to learn from your own mistakes and make something of yourself.

FUTURE OUTBOUNDS: All I can say is good luck. I know it’s hard, but be patient. You will get your clubs, host families, towns etc. soon. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.

I am in final host family, the Pyls. They are wonderful and I couldn’t ask for a better family. I now have less than 9 weeks left here in Belgium. I’m not sure where the time has gone. I’m not sure how I am ever going to leave this life. It’s where I live, it’s who I am, it’s what I’m used to. There is so much more to do in these next 2 months including going to Paris to meet up with some of the exchange students in France, SEE MY MOMMY, and I’m going to a Mika concert on Saturday! I can’t thank Rotary enough for giving me this year and putting up with me through all my struggles. Nobody will ever know how thankful I am. I give all the thanks in the world to my amazing mother who has helped me so much this year by backing off and letting me solve my own problems and live my own life and well….grow up. She has been my support through this whole experience and every time I wanted to just quit, give up, and come home early because life got hard she was always there to say no, fix your own mistakes, and give it your all. I love you so much and can’t wait to see you in T minus 36 days  A bientôt tout le monde!

Segah’s Bio

Who am I? I’m Segah Yildirim. I was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 14, 1992. I lived in New Jersey, and I was raised in Hallandale, Florida. Both of my parents are from Istanbul, Turkey.

I am always an “A average” student. I currently am the valedictorian of my Sophomore Class in Hallandale High School. After school, I’m part of clubs such as the National Honor Society and the soccer team.

My goal in life is to complete a prestigious college with a degree in business. When I grow up I plan to open a business of some sort, or possibly be a journalist. When I’m not in school, I enjoy playing soccer, cooking, going to the beach, mall, or movies with my friends, and traveling. Even though I don’t travel much, it’s my favorite thing to do, especially when it’s a road trip, that way I get to drive.

My favorite sport is soccer. I’m on my school’s team and I play as a goalie. I think it’s the most fun position, but there can be a lot of pressure on you, as if the game is on your hands.

I really enjoy listening to music. I listen to everything but country. Whether it’s rock, rap, or techno, I love it all. I mainly listen to the classics…Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Beatles, The Doors, The Police, etc…. Because I liked music so much, at one point, I wanted to make my own. I tried playing guitar, but that didn’t work out.

So I recently found out about this foreign exchange program. When I first heard about it, it was something too good to be true. I thought it was something I could just dream about, something so out of reach. But a few weeks later, I found myself buying an English-Portuguese dictionary, going to interviews and orientations, and writing my bio. It was a dream come true, all thanks to the Rotary Club. I would be living in a whole new world on the same planet. Everything would be new, the language, the food, the people, the streets, everything! This would be the opportunity of a lifetime, opening new paths of knowledge and opportunity every step of the way.

 Segah’s Journals

August 13 Journal

A week has passed and I already feel like a brasileiro.

I arrived on the 1st of August. As soon as I arrived at the Londrina Airport I found about 20 people awaiting my arrival. From Rotarians, to my new family, to the kids from the block (we took about a bajillion photos). Then to the house, and before I could unpack, my family rushed me to the neighbor’s house, where I found a rock band! They were amazing. The house is huge!!! There are 5 bedrooms and a huge backyard with a hammock and pool and a dog. They also have a maid. The house is next to a beautiful lake called Igapo.

After my arrival, I quickly made many friends. Brasilian people are very friendly. My sister takes me everywhere. We always have movie nights. I love movie nights. The movies are always in English with Portuguese subtitles so I can understand something for once 🙂

I’ve been here a week and I already been to 2 churrascos, brasilian bbq’s. I can’t explain how much better it is than American bbq’s. While we eat, one of our friends always have a guitar and tambourine handy so we listen to live music rather than a radio 🙂

The other day it was my friend’s birthday, we went to a restaurant where they had a pizza buffet. It was quite different. They had every pizza imaginable, from corn pizza to ice cream pizza.

The day after that we had a huge family/friends party where they cooked feijoada, which is the national dish. It was OK, actually better than I expected. It’s basically a stew of black beans, sausage, pig ear, pig feet, pig skin, pig nose, pig tail, etc. yummmmmmy

Yesterday I had my first sleepover with my friend Gustavo. He’s the drummer for the band I mentioned earlier. We stayed up all night listening to music, playing mortal kombat, and eating foooood.

Today I was at the local sports club. I go there often. There’s a huge swimming pool, tennis court, basketball courts, saunas, soccer courts and fields, and a cafeteria. It’s pretty cool. It’s a place where all the kids go to hang out, it’s way cooler than a mall. Well, my friends asked me to go to the saunas and I thought “why not”; when I entered, I saw about 50 old hairy naked men. It was a huge place filled with hot air, sweat, steam, and old hairy naked men. We also had to strip down. But after it was over, it actually felt quite refreshing and relaxed.

My Portuguese is getting a little better. Everybody speaks English with me. I guess I’ll learn when I start school. Speaking of school, it is shut down for 3 weeks due to an influenza outbreak.

Boa noite

Tchau

September 9 Journal

BRassssssssssssssssssil. I’ve been here for a little over a month. I’m starting to get accustomed to the culture and way of life. The people here are the friendliest people I’ve ever met. For the most part, I walk around a lake and take pictures. The lake is so beautiful and it’s right by the house.

I couldn’t have asked for a better host family, I love them. My host sister is the next Carlos Santana. The sound of her guitar always echoes through the house. But I think my host sister hates me, hahahaha.

I went to my first “15” party. When a girl turns 15 in Brasil, it’s apparently the biggest deal in the world. It was pretty cool. We dressed up in suits all formal and what not and then we were off to the party. There I met another intercambista, Mustafa, he’s from India, one of the coolest guys I’ve met here. We danced our socks off that day, it was crazy. The party started at 10 pm and ended at 5 am!!!

The funny part is that the next day, we had our 1st orientation. Mustafa and I couldn’t help but reminisce on the night before as we dazed into a tranquil sleep as the speeches went on for hours hahaha. I met a lot of cool intercambistas there. I met some guy from Australia, Joel Jackson. He’s a bit older than me but he quickly became my wing man, the partner in crime, haha. At the orientation we learned about all the trips, they all cost about $2000 (I’m sure my mom will be happy to hear that).

At school I have a friend named Alejandro. He is one of my better friends, but he is very shy when it comes to the ladies. Every time he would see a pretty girl (which is always, since we’re in Brasil) he would whisper in my ear “OMG this girl is so pretty”. And I would shout and point at the girl from across the room to put Alejandro in an awkward position. It’s hilarious.

Ohhhh. I haven’t mentioned this, but I have a mustache. Well, it’s more like fur, above my lip, but none of the girls in brasil like it. Everybody makes fun of it, even my host mom. Everyone pressured me into cutting it, but I refused. I love my fur. But then I met this girl at school called Isa Banks. She’s amazing. The first two weeks before I met her, I couldn’t stop talking about her (and i still don’t). Her hair, her style, her fat cheeks, her smile. Finally I grew some balls and decided to talk to her. It was so awkward. I didn’t understand a word she said. I just nodded my head up and down as I stared at her beauty. She’s adorable. So after I started getting to know her, she told me I was cute, but my moustache had to go. hahahah noooooo!!!!!!!!!! But I shaved it, just for her.

December 16 Journal

It’s been about 4 months now. I got over the whole, “omg, I’m in Brasil phase.” I spend most of my days going to the gym and a local sports club on the weekdays. School is already out, summer break, so I basically sleep in every morning and then hit the gym. I’m so buff.

One day I was walking home from the gym alone and I got robbed. Everyone told me that Brasil could be dangerous but I took it lightly. 3 guys came up to me and cornered me on their bikes. I was stupid enough to tell them that I was an Intercambista and I didn’t speak the language so I basically made it even easier for them. They took my cell phone and my money. But it’s all good.

November 14 was my birthday. It was a sad day for me. I went out and all, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my friends in the states. I miss having fun with my friends, and driving around town. Let’s just say it wasn’t my best birthday. But on the bright side, my host mom made a bbq for me and bought me a shirt 🙂

There was a HAIL STORM. I had never seen hail before! It was so weird and exciting. It was so big, and hurt so much. Everybody rushed outside when we saw it and started throwing it around. It was much bigger than I expected. It was so coooooooooool!

Let’s see… what else….

Well, I went to a soccer game. It was so exciting. It was one of the biggest rivalry teams, Palmeiras vs. Corintias. it was so fun, I went with 3 of my good friends on a bus to São Paulo. Unfortunately, it was a tie. My team is Palmeiras. It was such a good game, the fans went crazy. I got to see two of the most popular soccer players in the world. Ronaldo, which is like the former best player of the world, and Marcos, who is the best goalie of the world. The game ended 2-2.

Christmas is coming up. It was time to change host families but I grew so close to this family that they asked me to stay an extra month and a half for Christmas and new years. It made me feel so good. I really like this family. The house is all Christmas decorated and the tree is up. The house is so beautiful. Now I just have to go out and buy some gifts to put under the tree. I love the Christmas family atmosphere. I hope the big Christmas will make up for the small Halloween and no Thanksgiving.

Ahhhhhhhhh … A really big thing I didn’t tell you is that I went to the border of Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay. In the border, there is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Foz do Iguacu. It is one of the biggest and best waterfalls in the world. It was the magnificent. There are actually places that they built within the waterfall where you can stand on the edge of the waterfall and look down as the water drops. It was crazy. I actually filled a bottle of water from the water of the falls as a souvenir. You could hear the pressure of the waterfalls from miles and miles away. It had to be one of the best experiences of my life. wowwwwwwwwww.

After we saw the waterfall, we went to Paraguay. Paraguay is not a country the people of Brasil go to for fun. The only reason Brasilians go there is to buy stuff for cheap. Basically you can find the same shoes in Paraguay for $50 when they re about $150 in Brasil. It was so different. The poverty. All the people on the streets. The tangled power lines. But it was so fun.

March 1 Journal

CARNIVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

I finally went on my first Rotary trip. A place called Florianopolis, Santa Catarina. It was so beautiful, by far, the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen in my life. Not to mention those girls in the famous Brazilian bikinis. it was awesome. we went with my district of about 30 exchangers from all around the world which makes it so exciting. the bus ride took about 12 hours, but it’s all good. When we got there I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had missed the beach so much, I live in Hallandale Beach, so I’m used to seeing it every day. And ever since I’ve been in Londrina, I’ve been without a beach for 6 months.

I have to be honest, that the Brazilian beaches are much much much more beautiful than those of Florida. The way that there’s mountains covered by trees along the sides of the beach, the crystal clear water, the beautiful girls, the vendors selling everything from tropical juices to melted cheese, the giant waves and surfers.

Speaking of waves and surfers, one day my whole district almost died at sea. We were all so excited to enter the water so we didn’t care about all the “warning, extremely high tide” signs in the water. So we all entered and went as far out to sea as we could because it was all sand dunes. We literally went about half a mile out to sea and the water was still at our waist and then all of a sudden there was just a big hole in the ground and we all just dropped. Then came the 5-foot surfer waves that hit and pulled us in. We were all so tired and nobody had the energy to swim back. My friend Greta from Germany, got hit with a surfboard of a surfer while she was drowning so she was almost knocked out. Everyone was literally gasping for air with their hands reaching out for help. The life guards came and saved the female intercambistas while the guys had to struggle for their own way. Finally we made it out, thinking about life and death for the next 2 hours. We had a hotel right by the beach, so in the mornings we would swim, come back for lunch, and party at night.

Carnival wasn’t as cool as I expected, but it was alright. There are two types of carnival, one of dancing on the street to loud samba music, and one of watching the parade go by. We went to both types. I realized that after the first 15 minutes, samba loses its taste. All it is is banging drums and tambourine, and that’s all that Brazilians dance to in carnival. It would’ve been much better with techno music, but it’s ok.

Another cool thing that we did was sandboarding. Next to the beach there were huge mountains of sand. I had never seen something so cool. It was one of the most fun things I ever did. Everyone learned how to do it the second they got on, so we got the hang of it fast. It would hurt so much when you wipeout because of all the sand crashing into your face. It sucks especially when you have to climb back up the steep of the sand mountain with sand blowing in your eyes once you did your turn of sand surfing.

Sarah K’s Bio

Hi, my name is Sarah Kelly and I am currently a freshman at Vero Beach High School and participate in soccer, band, flag corps, my church youth group, and math team. I am most defined by my friends as an avid reader, my nose is always in a book when not otherwise occupied, and those who do not read much do not understand how I do it. Ever since I was young, I have acted teacher-like, I suppose that you pick that up when you have two brothers, a mom, and a dad that are all teachers.

My family is pretty split when comes to ages. My oldest brother, Scott, is currently 32, Ryan, the next youngest is 29 (and happens to teach at my high school), and Sean is 23. I am thereby the youngest by a whole 9 years, with a microscopic age of 14. We all enjoy spending time together, but we are pretty spilt up geographically too. Scott is in Pennsylvania with his wife Alison, Ryan is the only one close enough to see often because he lives in Vero, and Sean is at University of Florida in Gainesville (Go Gators!) so we do not see much of him.

I applied for the Rotary Youth Exchange Program because I knew that if I did not grab the opportunity I would never get to experience the world’s cultures and way of life first-hand. I am greatly appreciative for the opportunity to be able to do so, it is truly a once in a lifetime experience. I will be able to enjoy and learn language, culture, and history and feed my ravenous sense of adventure and curiosity.

Now I have reached the point where I leaving what I know, my security blanket, and jumping into the unknown lands of Brazil!

Sarah K’s Journals

September 26 Journal

Minha Primera Mes (My First Month)

Hello to everyone from Brasil!!!

I’ve been here for a little over a month now and it has been a lot of fun! I honestly can say that I didn’t know what I was getting into until the moment I walked on that plane in Orlando. It finally hit me that I was actually leaving, and for the first time I realized that I would not see my family and friends again for a whole year. But later I realized that a year really isn’t that long, so I decided to enjoy every minute of it instead!

When I arrived in Brasil the next morning after a very long flight, my host family was all waiting for me with open arms, well all except for my younger sister Veronica, because she was still at home sleeping (a girl after my own heart). As we left the airport I got my first real view of my new city, Salvador. It is beautiful here; it is an enormous city and is absolutely teeming with people all the time. And like every big city there are high rises, beautiful sculptures, and amazing architecture, but there are also favelas (slums), too.

My first day went by quickly as I spent my time getting to know my family and going to a family gathering at a relative’s house. The very next morning, I started school. Here I am in the 1st Grade, which is equivalent to the 10th grade in the US, so it’s about right. I have fourteen classes and they are Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Literature, Composition, Geography, History, Religion, Philosophy, and Laboratory. It sounds like a lot but since I don’t have every class every day, it’s not too bad. Everyone is very nice and helpful, and here you have every class with the same people and the teachers move, so the people in your class become your close friends, like a family even. Some people in my class have been studying together for eight years now! The school day lasts from 7 am to 12:30pm, during which I have six 50 minute classes and a 30 break. Our uniform consists of a polo shirt with the school logo monogrammed on, jeans or shorts that go the knee, and closed toed shoes. School here is also a lot more relaxed and the teachers and students are much friendlier with each other. From what I hear, it is one of the best schools in Salvador, and is for very bright kids, so some people are amazed that I can manage. It is almost the end of their 2nd semester here though, so I am not going to receive grades for this year, and some exchange students never get grades, but I am hoping to be a normal student next year anyways.

It gets dark here at about six o’clock and my sister Mari was studying for exams all my first week, so I didn’t do too much. The following weekend, though, I had orientation with all the other exchange students in my district. Here in D4550, we have 21 inbounds, 8 Germans, 7 Americans, 2 Canadians, 2 Danish, 1 Norwegian, and 1 Taiwanese. We all had a lot of fun together and bonded a lot that weekend. We went on a tour of Salvador, visited Vilas do Atlanticos, went to Praia do Forte, saw Protect TAMAR (sea turtle preserve), and went whale watching! On Saturday we did have a few informational meetings though. All in all, it was a great weekend.

The next week I really settled into my new routine, I went to school all week, started speaking more Portuguese, and went back to reading books, starting with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (in Portuguese, of course!). I visited the mall here one time with an Aunt and Vê, and it’s huge, like 4 or 5 levels all full of stores, which makes it all the more ironic to me, that they only have two theaters. I tried lots and lots of delicious new foods, and old ones fixed up a new way. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten more rice in my life! I’ve eaten rice and beans, churrasco, and things I can’t even remember the name of. I love the food here because it’s always so fresh and has so much more flavor to it. That weekend our family went to Guarajuba, where the beach house is located, and it was beautiful. The worst part was it is so windy there that even though the sun is very strong, you don’t feel it; it’s like insta-burn (but don’t worry mom, I wore sun block).

Time has continued to fly; my third, fourth, and fifth weeks went by in a snap! I still can’t believe that my exchange is 1/10 of the way over! I have just been going to school, to my “grandmother’s” birthday party, where I got pretty embarrassed because I didn’t know their Happy Birthday song, and to the mall or swimming pool occasionally. I did go to the airport once, but I wasn’t running home, I promise, I was just going to register my visa with the Federal Police. On the weekend between my third and fourth weeks I went to a festa do quinze anos (15h birthday party) for a friend of my sister, Mari. It’s a really big party here, and it is a big tradition, like a coming-out party. It was huge, I had an amazing time dancing and having fun with my friends and two other exchange students, Jola, from Norway, and Annika, from Germany. I think this party was almost as big as the homecoming at my school in Florida, and it was only for one girl. There were pictures of her everywhere, and everything was personalized with her name on it. It was amazing! Plus, the good news is I have been invited to another 15th birthday party next month for a girl in my class!

Oh I almost forgot the people, and that would be leaving out a lot. My first day of school was hilarious, between the language barrier and all the crazy questions. I was asked everything from, “Do you go to Disney World every day?” to “Do you know Robert Pattinson?” to “Is high school really all cliquey like in all the American films?” Actually, my whole first week was like that, random questions about anything and everything, I felt like I was being examined under a microscope, but I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life. Brasilian people also do not know the meaning of personal space, and you can’t bring your personal bubble here with you either, because they can’t even imagine something like that exists. Other than that people here are very much like Americans, the way they act and do things is very similar.

As for my Portuguese. I am fairly functional – I can read, speak some, write some, and understand a lot. I even half-dream in Portuguese. It’s not too hard to catch on; I think listening is the key. I also took my first test, which I didn’t have to take, for Chemistry, and I got one of the highest scores in the class! What a surprise that was. I am also very happy to say I’m almost finished with Harry Potter e o Prisioneiro de Azkaban, only 5 chapters left! Next I’m on to O Ladrao de Raios, which I was so happy to find in Portuguese, because it’s my favorite book of all time in English!

To finish, I just want to say thank you to Rotary for sending me to this amazing country, with these crazy-but-wonderful people, and giving me the opportunity to shine more than I even thought I would. I also so thankful to my parents, both here and there, for being able to help through all these changes, and my friends in both countries, for everything!

Muitos Beijos do Brasil!!!!!

-Sarah

(P.S. It amazes me how often, when I say that I am from Florida, that people go, “Oh, so you’re one of Al’s kids.”)

November 19 Journal

Os Segundo e Terceiro Mêses ( Months Two and Three 9/23 -11/23)

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.” – Dan Rather

Brasil has changed me, in so many aspects of my life. It leads me to new things, dares me to rethink the way I’ve lived for 15 years, drives me to succeed, and has brought me closer than ever to God. I will never be able to express my gratitude to all my teachers, the ones who believe in me through all of this and support me. Without all of them I can’t imagine I’d have ever made it this far.

These two months have been both busy and boring, both amazing and nerve wracking; it’s like good old regular life, but in a new way. The routine I’ve settled into is so similar, yet changing, that sometimes I forget this isn’t the way it’s always been. Now I am just another member of the group, for the most part, as I participate in trips, tests, homework, and hanging out with everyone, the only thing I don’t fit in well with is my Portuguese, which is getting better every day. As it improves, I feel myself beginning to make more and more friends and get more involved.

My second month consisted mainly of school and weekends in Guarajuba. We did have one week off from school in the beginning of October, but I was unlucky enough to be sick the entire time with a cold. I also was reading a lot, finishing O Ladrão de Raios and beginning the first Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer’s Stone. School had become much easier, as my level of understanding increased, and I was soon participating in class projects and other activities. My second month was the slowest so far, and I was sick a few times, so it was hardest then not to miss home, but as time flew by, I fell more and more into a pattern of living here, in my present life, and not in the past.

This month has been crazy and exciting and fun. I’ve been getting so much more involved, in sports, with friends, with school, and with Interact. I took my first school trips, one to a public school for disabled kids here, and one hiking in Santo Amaro! Santo Amaro was a blast because it was a great opportunity for me to bond with my classmates and get to know them better. And let me just tell you, you haven’t had a crazy bus ride, until you’ve ridden on a bus full of Brasilian kids with music and cameras!

My first weekend of this month I had another big 15 party for my friend Saprit, which was totally amazing! All the people from my class were there and we danced and hung out and had a wonderful time, it was a lot of fun! I spent the rest of that weekend with my best friend here, Mariana, and it reminded me of how laughter is an international language, as well as worship. I attended church for the first time with her and her family, and was shocked to see that among so many differences, worship is still the same, the feeling in the room, the joy of seeing hearts turned to Jesus, and one word we could all sing together ‘Hallelujah’. It was like a miracle in itself!

The second week of this month, I also had my first, and last, PE class, for futsal. Futsal is a type of soccer played inside on a something like a basketball court, but with soccer markings. Me, being my usual clumsy self managed to run into the fence on the side of the court. Who knew how much traction cleats and grass provide??? It was particularly funny because my coach, who speaks almost no English, managed to yell one word, “Brakes!” before I slammed into the fence. I had a lot of fun and managed to score a goal later on in the class, so I wasn’t so embarrassed leaving.

The following weekend I traveled on a bus for 8 or so hours to Itabuna for the Interact CODIC Forum. For eight hours people danced in the aisles, listened to loud Brasilian music, talked, and went crazy, it seemed. The weirdest part for me was how the adults didn’t seem to mind at all, which is such the opposite of the US. Once we got to Itabuna we were going all weekend with meetings, games, parties, and everything you can imagine. It was a pretty long weekend, and we were all tired afterwards. We all looked forward to sleeping on the long bus ride home, but of course the music came on and everyone was up and going again. When we finally got home at 10:00 Monday night, we were all exhausted, and I think all our parents let us sleep through school the following day! When the parents let you sleep, then you know you must look exhausted!

The third week we had a kind of farewell party for our futsal class, which was pretty interesting considering I’d only been there for one week before, but they said I should come anyways. We ate and laughed and goofed off together, and I’m really looking forward to playing with these girls again next year! The weekend came quickly that week and I got a lot of much needed rest in Guarajuba.

The fourth week was my final week of school, as this week was all exams. I grew more and more excited for summer as the days went by, it was a strange feeling, anticipating another summer so soon after I had just finished one, but it’s was still exciting, nonetheless. Friday afternoon came and I was bursting with joy to be done again with school for a few more months.

This past Saturday, I had another party for a friend of my sister, and it was fun too. I danced with my little sister, my friends, and even a couple guys. I also learned than high heels are murder, but that’s not too important. All in all it was a great way to kick off my summer!

This week I’ve been diving into my reading and also spending a lot of time with my sisters. I’ve now finished the first Harry Potter and am working on Crepúsculo (Twilight) now. I went to school yesterday to say goodbye to my friends and get my ticket for Lua Nova (New Moon), as I’ll be going tomorrow with all the girls from my class. It’s nice that we’re all so excited for the same thing, even though our interests normally differ.

Right now I’m really trying to get into the language that is Brasilian Portuguese and immerse myself in it. My brain is currently living in the state of limbo where it juggles between English, Portuguese, and Spanish, and even dabbles in other languages that I’ve never really studied, like Latin, French, and Italian. It’s truly amazing how all the Latin languages are so interwoven with each other, and I can’t wait to try and learn more when I get home!

My time here has brought so many questions about my life into mind lately, both old and new, ones I’ve previously pushed aside or need to rethink, and also new ones. As I work through these things I have learned to lean so strongly on God, and He has answered a lot for me, I just wasn’t listening too well before. I understand that for most people exchange is about finding yourself, but for me I think it has been more about finding God, and I think I finally know why I’m here, in Brasil, right now. My only hope is that my exchange continues to help me along in making these life altering decisions, and also in my quest to find more of God.

Well I guess that’s about it for now, but I’ll try to keep you guys a little better posted in the next month so there won’t be any more two month journals. As the realization that my exchange is three tenths over is beginning to hit, I’m starting to realize just how much time has been flying, and it’s motivating me to enjoy my life here that much more, because it will be over before I know it. I am really having the most amazing time here, and I’m so thankful to Rotary, my parents, God, and all my other teachers that were poking and pushing me along and guiding me to where I am now, and to where I’m headed.

Beijinhos,

Sarah

January 6 Journal

Meu Quarto Mês (My Fourth Month 11/23/09 – 1/05/10)

“To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.”

“Oh dear,” said Lucy “But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan.

-Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis

Finding out what will happen is the whole idea of being on exchange. Saying yes to everything and never wondering what would’ve happened. Writing your own story and seeing what will happen. The past month for me has been amazing and strange at the same time. It’s been high, low and every feeling in-between. In my mind it was perfect.

My first weeks of summer vacation were fabulous; I spent time with my family, devoured books, and had fun! My family went for a boat trip to one of the islands inside the Baia do Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints) with friends of my parents. We got a lovely day, a beautiful sunset, and the chance to swim at one the ten best beaches in the world! I saw The Twilight Saga: New Moon with all the girls from my class and my Lit. teacher, spent a couple weekends with friends, went to church a couple times, and spent lazy days in the Guarajuba beach house. It was the perfect beginning to my second summer. =]

The week of Christmas all the extended family in Salvador started to gather and the work holidays begun. Christmas Eve we had a charming party at my Grandmother’s house with all her children in Salvador, and some visitors from São Paulo. We ate, talked, drank, and opened presents merrily. It helped to keep my spirits very high to be in the presence of all my incredible host family, rather than dwell my absence from my own. We arose early the next morning and set off for Guarajuba where we stayed together for three or four days. During this time I became aware that my thoughts were changing language of their own accord and that the words were flowing from my mouth easily, as if I’d been speaking Portuguese for a year, rather than 4 months. It was a great surprise for the people here to learn that I am not a quiet person, I just couldn’t express myself very freely before, and now I’m pretty sure they wish that I’d return to quiet again. For the last two days we stayed in Guarajuba my family hosted two Danish girls, Anna and Anna Sophia, who are currently participating in the CISV village program. As the girls spoke no Portuguese, but good English, I became the main communicator with them. I don’t think my brain has ever been as confused as was when I would switch back and forth from English to Portuguese over and over again!

My family returned to Salvador with plenty of time to spare before Révillon (New Year) celebrations began. My family gathered again in my Grandmother’s house, which is the closest to the Farrol da Barra (Barra Lighthouse), from where you can get a good view of the fireworks, the concert, and the drunk partiers. My dad, two sisters, two aunts, and I ventured out into the chaos and had quite the adventure. The crowd was immense, it appeared sort of like a gigantic tailgate party with the loud music, street vendors, and drinking. As we were about halfway through the crowd it struck midnight and champagne corks flew everywhere, along with a good amount of champagne and beer. It was like taking a shower in champagne (which I do not recommend by the way), and it was not so cool. The smell of champagne mixed with sweaty people was enough to keep me from drinking until I’m 30! Other than that we heard some good music, watched tons of fireworks, and eventually made is home for a good night’s rest.

Since New Year’s I’ve been relaxing in Guarajuba and packing my bags. I’ll be moving to my second family this Sunday. And yes I did manage to fit everything back in my suitcases as unbelievable as that sounds. I can truly say that I am sad my time with the Henriques family is over, they were the best family I could have ever asked for, and I’ll always remember my first Brasilian family with love. I can only hope that I’ll be blessed with an equally amazing second family.

Oh and of course, I have to mention all those books I’ve been devouring. I’ve finished Lua Nova (New Moon), and I also read A Garota Americana (All American Girl), Bass Ackwards and Belly Up, Pride and Prejudice, Tamanho 42 Não Ê Gorda (Size 12 Isn’t Fat), Garoto Encontra Garota (Boy Meets Girl), and The Magician’s Nephew. Also I’ve read Genesis and Exodus of the Bible. As you can see, I’ve had my nose in the books again, but what’s new?

And this, I believe, brings me to the end of another journal, which sadly signals the end of another chapter of my exchange. As I now see half my exchange behind me, I know now I wouldn’t change the way things happened for anything. I no longer wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed home, or what will happen when I return there. I’m solely focused on what will happen here because my time is short, my hopes are high, and my eyes are set straight ahead. Again I feel so enormously thankful to God for bringing me this far, and to my parents, teachers, friends and Rotary for helping me all along the way.

Beijos, Abraços, e Amor,

Sarah

February 27 Journal

And Now Time Begins to Fly (1/5/10 – 2/27/10)

“I was thinking about how disjointedly time seemed to flow, passing in a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, etched in my mind.” -Stephanie Meyer, Twilight

As it always happens with exchange, you begin to lose track of time, the months feel like weeks, the days like moments, and before you know it, the end is imminently approaching. These past two months have been perfect. The way things worked out will never cease to amaze me, now my life has really begun here.

January flew by in a blur, as the end of summer break always does; I fell in love with my new family, read books, saw films, hung out with my sister, went to parties, and experienced Festival de Verão (a festival of concerts). In February it was back to school again, though only for a week, and then Carnival began.

I have returned to school with a changed perspective, I am now part of the group, and though I may not look Brasilian, I fit in. No one treats me special, no one talks extra slow so that I can understand, and they understand me too. And I must say it feels good to blend in, to be a part of the Brasilian culture.

As I am writing this, I can happily say I have survived Brasilian Carnival and all the madness that goes along with it. I went out with my host parents one night and out with the Rotary group another. The thing about the Salvador Carnival is that it’s the Carnival of the people- it’s not Rio where you see the samba dancers parading through the streets- it’s the popular modern singers of Brasil and millions of people jumping, dancing, laughing, and having fun together- just going wild. It was so great to just get out there and jump around and dance like no one’s watching with all my exchange friends, one of the best nights of my life, so far.

My life right is really great, full of friends, family, music, books, learning, and every good thing in life it seems. The best part is I have this amazing life here, but I also have an incredible one to return to in three months, and I don’t think any exchange student can ask for more than that. Yeah it’ll be hard to leave Brasil, but in reality I’m not leaving it, it’ll always be in my heart.

As the days come to pass I realize just how much Rotary has given me in this remarkable experience, and how much growth it brings in the lives of everyone affected. Not just the exchange student changes, but their families, host families, friends, counselors, and communities. I can never thank enough my God, Rotary, my families, and my friends. Without your support this year would have been a lot harder, even impossible. Thank you all!

Beijos, Sarah

April 22 Journal

The Beginning of the End (2/28/10 – 4/20/10)

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930), (Sherlock Holmes)

I spend every day falling deeper in love with this amazing country, Brasil. And when I think about it, I wonder if every country is really this unique and beautiful and special, and we’re just too blind to see it. It seems like we are so focused on our own culture, that we only know to describe others as different and strange. But in reality, it’s like the pearl in an oyster; you have to get past the barrier to find the astonishing treasure hidden inside.

The past couple months have been more than perfect. I’ve gotten to spend time with all my loving families, even my real parents and brother, go out with friends, read great books, be a tour guide, participate in Interact, turn 16, grow in my relationship with God, study at a great school, and just live life to the fullest ~ the whole idea of exchange.

These months have been full of the little things, like having my parents here, it was something else to be a full time translator for a week, and though I absolutely loved having my parents and brother here, I still have a newfound sympathy for translators, because saying everything five times can be tiring.

I had the opportunity to go visit an association that supports children and families on a school field trip, too. It’s located in the poorest neighborhood in Salvador, and it’s amazing how many lives this association has touched and changed. I got the opportunity to get to know and befriend some of the teenagers. The amazing thing was that these teens have the same hopes and dreams, just like any other adolescent, and they also are blessed in a way many of my school don’t understand. These kids are happy with the things they have, and though it’s not much, it’s enough.

One of my favorite things during these two months was the amazing performance given by a group of girls in the historical part of the city, Pelourinho. This band was sponsored by a grant given to get girls and women off the streets, away from drugs, and back into the classroom. You would’ve never known, from looking at them, that these girls and women had once been homeless or drug addicts; it was like they had been given a second chance at life. Not only was it a phenomenal performance, but it was a sensational experience to see how music has changed these girls’ lives.

Every little moment has come to mean more, if possible, as I see that there’s not enough time left. With a month and a half left, full of traveling, family, friends, and school, it doesn’t seem like everything’s going to fit in, in the end. Without a doubt, we’re meant to live like there is no tomorrow, and exchange is like a crash course in that, especially with the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and China.

I don’t know if I can ever thank my parents enough for letting me go, or Rotary for the opportunity, or God for the courage, but I will certainly try, and I will certainly give back, because this is a year I’ll never forget! This chance only happens once in a lifetime! Thank you everyone!

Beijos e Abraços do Brasil (Kisses and Hugs from Brasil),

Sarah

May 25 Journal

It’s Not Over (4/21/20 – 5/25/10)

I may only have 2 weeks left but it’s not over. It’s far too soon to be going home. I don’t see where nine months could have already gone by and left me with this measly remainder of two weeks to get everything done! I remember that coming was hard, saying goodbye to all I knew and loved, but what I’ve found is that leaving is harder; as you can never be 100% sure you’ll be back.

They always say you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone, and though I can’t really know what it’ll be like to live without Brasil, I do believe that I will miss it a lot. My loving parents and siblings, Sandra, Jadilson, Fernanda, Roquelina, Eugenia, Ricardo, Veronica, and Mariana, and my dear friends Mariana, Esther, Alessa, Camila, Raissa, Amanda, and Larissa and the rest of my class will be missed more than anything.

As I just got back from the Amazon, which was one of my most amazing Brasilian adventures, I have even more great friends, and even more great memories, to remember. I got the chance to see all kinds of exotic animals I never thought I would get to see in real life, met over 70 exchange students, participated in an traditional folkloric festival, saw an amazing Opera House, learned lots at the Museum of Natural History of Manaus, went swimming in a waterfall in the jungle, got painted with all natural “war-paint”, and held an alligator. Not to mention, swimming in the river, meeting an Indian tribe, visiting a plantation, trying to gather açai, visiting a local community, swimming with the pink dolphins, playing soccer with the natives, canoeing, planting a tree, learning to survive in the jungle, going to the beach, and partying all week long! It was so awesome!

Since then I’ve been full of things to do, parties, family stuff, school, going out with friends, all the good stuff 😉 I have loved it all! I can promise you all one thing, I’m going to love it and live it up until the end, “‘cuz it’s not over till it’s over”!

Beijos XOXO,

Sarah

Sarah P’s Bio

Hello, I’m Sarah Pierce. My hair color/styles change but… For the past couple of years I have been a red head. I have to admit, that I like the attention my red hair provides for me. Though, I have come to the realization that hair does not convey the kind of person you are. So, this is the reason for my decision to go back to my natural hair color. That being said or “read”…

Again, hello, I’m Sarah Pierce and I’m a seventeen year old senior at Bartram Trail High school. I’m the Secretary of the National Art Honor Society and a student of the Design & Construction Academy at Bartram Trail. I love anything that deals with art, which brings me to my favorite classes which are Fashion Production and AP Art History. I love sewing and designing clothes. I aspire to be a fashion designer. I was born and raised in Florida. Even though I am a natural Floridian, I love to travel. And I’m very excited to take my first trip across the Atlantic to Croatia!!!

So, no matter what, if I have brownish-blonde hair with black tips, red short hair or natural plain dirty blonde hair I will always be the fun loving, caring and creative Sarah Pierce.

 Sarah P’s Journals

November 16 Journal

I’m not sure how to start this journal or exactly where to end it. I know I have waited way too long to write this. I started to write a journal after the first week, then that moved to my one month anniversary then to my second. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that my views of my host family, friends, Croatia, life, school, etc. change constantly. Frankly it’s hard to keep up with. I feel like I’m in a constant battle with myself; should I give this person a hug or a hand shake, should I say this or that, should I turn left or right?

Being in a foreign land you learn to make decisions fast. I was the kind of person that thought too much about one particular thing. Being an exchange student you really have to just start from nowhere and go, so I guess that’s how I should continue writing this journal. It’s really going to start………now.

I woke up to a text message from my Croatian teacher with the good news of snow. I opened my French doors to my balcony (glories of being an only child) and saw my first snowfall. How I treasure this moment. As the first snow of the season fell, I thought of everything that had already happened in my first couple months of being in Croatia. I visited Rijeka, danced folklore, eaten many mystery meats, discovered what some of those mystery meats were (too ashamed to share), have been late to school, had the President drive past me and my host family twice, seen many churches, had a Croatian photographer yell at me, eaten fresh figs, walked in graveyards, cried, actually kept my room clean, made friends, and I even fooled someone into thinking I was Croatian. With all of these ups and downs I realized that, in any situation I find myself in, I need to find joy in the simplest of things. So, I put on my newly purchased snow boots from Zagreb and headed to school. I had one of the largest smiles on my face, that I had been missing. As I walked to school I couldn’t help but sing Christmas tunes and Death Cab For Cutie songs. I didn’t care if the old ladies dressed in all black stared at me. I was genuinely happy.

I arrived at school, found my classmates, and followed them to our first subject of the day, which happened to be English. Students in Croatia take two mandatory languages, German & English. Italian and Latin classes are on Saturdays if you wish to take them. In English class my very wise teacher (also my private Croatian teacher) wrote the scrambled thought of the day on the blackboard. While the students tried to put the words in correct order, it all came to me. “There is no failure except in no longer trying” by Elbert Hubbard. I haven’t given up yet and I’m not going to. Yes, being an exchange student is hard but I know in the end it will be all worth it. Learning the language can be very difficult. I think Croatian is a beautiful language, but it is something I would call a beautiful mess. There are so many hidden rules, different words with the same meaning, or single words with many different meanings. I can definitely say I learned something every day. I have Croatian lessons almost every school day for 45 minutes with my English teacher. All the other Exchange students in Zagreb go to Croatian school twice a week. When I say “all the other exchange students” I mean it. There are twelve exchange students in Croatia. Ten students are in Zagreb, then there is Isabella from Germany in Varaždin, and little me in little Đurđevac.

I do like Đurđevac, however it is really small. According to Wikipedia Đurđevac has 8,862 inhabitants. Nothing like the one million plus in Jacksonville, Florida. Another thing different from Jacksonville is the air. The air here feels so nice to breathe in, and I take pleasure in taking a couple of deep breaths a day just to appreciate it. My town is cute and has character. It’s one of those towns where everyone knows each other. So, it was big news that an American girl was here. My first couple of weeks in school beside getting stared at I heard whispers of “amerikana” or “američki”. Now those whispers and stares have turned into small smiles followed by waves. I’m gradually becoming apart of this community. Đurđevac has one church, a town hall, town square, and I think we even have one traffic light. I like to people-watch sometimes but then the people I’m watching start watching me and it turns into some weird ‘I just made eye contact with you and I don’t know what to do’ tango. I like to watch the little kids pass by with backpacks that are bigger than they are. I see the gypsy kids following behind them and they say things to me that I don’t understand. I see the business men and the super skinny European women. I have started to recognize some of the dogs that roam my town. Some of my classmates know the names of these dogs. At first it really seemed very random when a dog would fall asleep by your feet when you were drinking coffee. But now I’m just accustomed to it.

What is also very common in Đurđevac is the bakas in black, like I mentioned earlier in my journal. I see these old women all the time. They wear all black from the kerchief on their head to their black shoes. To get a mental picture they look just like the grandmother, γιαγιά, from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Everyday when I walk somewhere I’m always afraid they are going to hit me with their bikes. I swear sometimes they just come out of nowhere. Instead of looking to the left and right twice each, I take an extra third look. I have to make sure that the old lady’s skirt doesn’t get caught in the chain wheel. That would cause her to swerve uncontrollably while I innocently cross the street. Then all that would be left of me would be a half eaten apple and Croatian children’s books. I’m not trying to be paranoid or anything like that; sometimes you just have to think ahead. Oh dear, I really do live in the country. I look out for grandmothers on bikes while Sierra has to look out for motorcycles driving on the sidewalk in Zagreb.

I’m not sure how to end this journal just like I wasn’t sure how to start it. But here I am at the end of my thoughts. Hopefully I will write again sometime soon. That’s the least I can do, for taking so long to write this journal in the first place. The snow has yet to fall again, but every time I look out a window I see all of the possible opportunities awaiting me.

Till next time.

With love all the way from Croatia,

Sarah

May 6 Journal

6 months since my last journal, 8 months in Croatia, and 4 months in my new host family. No, I didn’t fall off a cliff into the Adriatic, I didn’t get sent home, nor appear in some mystery meat stew. I’m here, where I have been, except now I live in a real village, Virje. Things in the beginning were rough, but I stuck it through with all the support of my family, Rotary, Croatian teacher, and friends. Life is not so melancholy any more. Everything is folding into place, got out of the first host family house and now on to bigger better things… only problem is that I’m having a hard time keeping up with all.

Recently, my parents came to visit. Which was nice – I feel like they grounded me a little. I have been so surrounded in Croatian culture that I sort of forgot where I came from for a little bit (oh dear, that seems scary to admit). My parents stayed in my area of Croatia for 4 days, then we went to Rijeka. After visiting Croatia’s coast we traveled to Italy. Bless my father’s soul he drove in Italy; that was an experience itself. Soon our trip in Italy was over and so soon my parents came and went. It was nice to have them meet the people that I love in Croatia and for them to get a slice of real Croatian life.

The strangest part of their visit was when we had to part ways. We were in Zagreb, I could not go to the airport with them so they dropped me off at the train station. We were in front of Glavni Kolodvor and we had to say goodbye. The world seemed to stop spinning. People around us were waiting for their trams, walking to work, talking on their mobile phones, doing what people do. Then there was us, my Mother crying, my Father standing beside her. Walking into the train station alone was the first time I felt like a true adult. I swear if I had the train cabin to myself I would have burst into tears. The world was on pause for that moment then on fast forward to now. Everyone moves on and continues to play their roles in life. So here’s mine….

15/4/10, 19:57 Now, I’m in the kitchen, my host father is making more French fries for my host brothers, my host mother is trying to teach me how to whistle, while my brothers laugh at me. “Jesti Špek!” (eat bacon) they yell, like it’s some trick that everyone uses to help you whistle. Or maybe it just the idea of ingesting food that does the trick for everything in Croatia.

17/4/10 1:46 I can’t stop thinking about what will happen in these next couple of months. Cats are running on top of my roof. The Strokes are going through my speakers and I’m thirsty.

17/4/10, 13:30 I’m home alone, Antonio (my oldest host brother) is helping Grandpa at the vineyard. Leo (youngest host brother) has tennis practice. Mama Sanja is at her university in Zagreb. Tata Željko has a 24 hour shift at the veterinarian office. I’m bored. I go outside, it’s a nice day. I walk through the garden, into the barn, pass the sheep, out the barn, knock on the door to my grandparent’s house. Baka is cooking lunch. I ask her if she needs help, she doesn’t, and even if she did need it she wouldn’t let me. We have a small conversation. As I sit and watch her wash the salad, I wish I could understand her better. Croatian is a difficult language and it’s even harder when people are speaking in Kajkavski (a Croatian dialect known in my region) and not the official Croatian language. It’s a problem that accrues daily for me.

18/4/10 – 12:00 It’s Šimun’s confirmation. One of my best friends (Dino) is the ‘kum’ (godfather is the best translation). Šimun is the younger brother of my other best friend (Tomislav), which they belong to family friends of my host family. I didn’t go to the church sermon at 10. The first and last time I went to a church sermon in Croatia was on Easter. My host mother flicked holy water into my eye and the old ladies gave me weird looks because I wasn’t praying. We are at a restaurant outside of my village. The aspects of this day look like lamb, battle ship, cakes, more lamb, poker, talking, and more lamb.

19/4/10- 6:00- Wake up. Long night of restlessness. It’s my sister’s birthday, today. I’m a little sad that I’m missing it. There are other things that I have missed but at least I have gained a lot in the process. I stop writing a paper for ethics, I have writer’s block. Go eat German cereal. Write more. Listen to music. Finish it. Wake Antonio up, get ready for school. This week we go to school in the afternoon.

23/04/10- 19:00 Recovering from the boring week at school. End of the year festivities have already started to begin. There will be a barbecue tonight. I’m getting ready. Debating rather or not to wear the dress with high socks or with tights. I go with the high socks. The nights still get pretty chilly but I’m ready for warmer weather. Dorotea (friend) and her mother will be here soon to take me to the barbecue.

24/04/10- 8:00 I should have worn the tights. Baking an apple pie to bring to the Tišljar’s vineyard.

24/04/10- 19:00 It was a long day. Got to our family friend’s vineyard at 12. Everyone pitched in to help dig around the vines, even Grandma and Grandpa. I love being in the vineyard, especially since the weather has been so nice lately. We also cleaned up the vineyard a bit. Cooked dinner. They liked the pie I baked. Now I’m at home to rest a wee bit. Then I will go in Ledi for tea, and after that I will watch a movie at one of my friend’s house.

This is my life, that I’m not ready to leave. It may be simple but I’m absolutely in love with it.

Simone’s Bio

Time is not a solid object. Time can be bent, warped, stretched to amazing lengths, but also cut frighteningly short. Moments should be cherished, Memories made and saved.

All this being said, I try to make the most of my time on Earth. I do my best to fill my hours with fun and my days with productivity. While I may seem to participate in many varied activities (Musical Theater, Foxhunting, Mission trips, college courses), everything I do I do because of the personal fulfillment I receive. Hopefully along the way I help a few people (and animals!) out, too.

One way I make the most of life is by planning and scheduling as many foreseeable events as possible. While this may seem like I take the spontaneity out of life, that is far from the truth- there’s always time for something more! “I’ll make time.” That’s my motto, certainly when it comes to fitting in activities I know I’ll enjoy. I rarely feel an urgency to leave a fun outing or end a good trail-ride with my horses. And why does “House, M.D.” have to be only an hour long?! I like to have a focus not only for my day or week, but also for my life in general. I’ve always loved animals, and I’ve wanted to become a veterinarian since I was about 2 years old. More recently, I’ve found that I want world travel to be incorporated into my career. International agricultural development seems to be a great fit to include all my interests.

Spending my Gap year in France has been a dream of mine for several years, and for this dream to have become a reality is almost surreal. I’ve always wanted to travel to France, as their country and culture has always been fascinating to me. Even when I was a little girl, Belle was (and is) my favorite Disney Princess, and Madeline was my favorite TV show (you remember, “There were twelve little girls in two straight lines, and the smallest of all was Madeline). And to top it all off, my name is Simone! I’ve felt destined to visit this country which I’ve so admired.

I cannot wait to start this new adventure, spend my time wisely and fully, and learn and experience everything I can in my year abroad. I’m absolutely thrilled to be offered this fantastic opportunity, and I can’t thank Rotary enough for giving me this chance to live as a World Citizen for a little while.

 Simone’s Journals

August 16 Pre-Departure Journal

August 16, 2009: Reality

Little by little the realities strike me that I am, in fact, leaving for FRANCE in just a handful of days. I suppose I could say that last December when I received a call from Jody telling me my heart’s desire had come true, that might have been the first reality, but that would not be true. Now, looking back, it was merely a vague gesture that I would have to defer my enrollment to Sweet Briar College. Even the January Language Camp wasn’t much of an indicator. More like a weekend get-away with a bunch of friends I had not yet met. All the emails from France, the papers and speeches and Rotary meetings, they were just information and good times. Perhaps leaving the June Orientation should have been an eye-opener with all the sweet Good-Byes, but I knew I’d be seeing many of my new friends in the weeks before our departure. And it is true; I have seen many soon-to-be-Outbounds, which only slowed my sense of reality. Even the lack of seeing them wasn’t a huge sign, because it’s only been about two weeks since some of the first have left.

The reality of my departure began falling into place several months ago, but has recently taken a turn on an out-of-control TGV (fast-speed French train). First, it was the ending of a good relationship, knowing of my impending departure, and it was pointed out even at that time that I was denying that I am going, not verbally, but in action and mental state. It wasn’t fair to continue to act as if I were to stay in Gainesville, because that wasn’t true, and I had to deal with what would be my future reality: France. Caitlin (in Denmark) is absolutely right when she says that relationships are a real part of life. But they don’t have to be the only part of life, not when the whole of our lives is to be found, and not when we are about to embark for a new life in a new land with new EVERYTHING. It isn’t fair to hold back someone else or to hold yourself back in fear of growing into a new person, unknown back home, but perhaps the person you are meant to be, even if doesn’t seem like holding-back is what you are doing or about to do.

Soon after the break-up, another piece of reality was finding a home for my wonderful, perfect horse, Lucky. Thankfully, that has fallen into place perfectly, and I bring him to his new home today.

Then it was my eighteenth birthday and receiving a Joyeux Anniversaire card in the mail from my first host family, signed by everyone, complete with “gros bisous!” which made my WEEK! The family cheerfully reminded me that I will celebrate my next birthday in France. Was that a bird, a plane? No, it was another slice of the Reality Pie.

Applying for my Visa in Miami, wearing my Rotary blazer, and speaking very quietly in French to the woman behind the glass, that was an exhilarating experience, because almost no one I know in Gainesville speaks French, save for my French teachers and a few other students who I can’t understand anyways. Now, every time I get the chance to speak French with a French person, ha, I get too excited to communicate comprehensibly. A 20-minute Skype video-chat the other day with one of my host families, haha, it left me excited, thrilled, embarrassed (for my difficulty understanding what they said), slightly confused, and completely exhausted!

In the last two weeks or so, man, that TGV is trying to beat the Concord plane (another French invention)! The Welcome Home Dinner, buying new luggage to withstand international travel, other people’s Good-bye parties, meeting some wonderful new Inbounds (including the French girl, Juline, whose family will be my first host family), learning more and more about what will soon be “My Life In France, the Simone Faas story” (Sorry, Julia Childs), and lastly my own Good-bye party. These all pulled reality from the sky faster that Chicken Little could run for cover!

Maintenant, c’est J-9 (Now, it is 9 days to go). I’m in the single digits, and it’s only coming faster. Dear friends of mine have begun to leave for college, and soon my college friends will be back for another round of Good-byes. I’ve begun to pack, I’ve taken my French final and written countless emails and Facebook messages in French, and I’ve received my final flight information from the travel agency. I’ve even begun to make friends with the “oldies” in my French Rotary District, the ones who are from southern-hemisphere countries and arrived in February and will leave in January.

I’m excited to meet everyone face-à-face, hear French spoken everywhere around me (even if I only catch about 10% of what is ever said), and see what life without ceiling fans is like. Well, maybe I’m not too excited about that last one.

Déjà, j’ai peur. Still, I’m scared. Not so much of what I will see and experience, but of what I’m leaving behind. I know I’ll be fine, and it will just be different. No more trail rides with my mom, or tennis matches with my dad, or impromptu sushi at Shooting Star at 1:30 am on a Monday night with my best friends. Mais, j’ai espoir. But, I have hope. I have hope that these things will be substituted for new things with new people who will love me all the same, even if it takes a little while. I have hope that my new reality will be just as blessed as my current one.

Thank you, Rotary, for giving me tickets for the wildest train ride of my life, so far that is. I’ll have to see just how crazy the TGV really is. I’ll let you know.

Merci beaucoup et gros bisous!

–Simone

September 10 Journal

I’ve been here two weeks now, and I truly love it! While everything is new, my adjustment hasn’t been too hard. So many things here, and the way of life, it’s all very similar to my lifestyle in Florida. My host parents are really really nice, and they’ve definitely made me feel at home, like I fit in very well here. I also love that other exchange students seem to be nearly automatic friends! That certainly makes life easier! I’m lucky that I have two in my town, and we all go to the same school.

I’m settling down pretty well. I don’t quite have a routine yet, but I think in another week or so, I will. I’ve started to make a couple friends in class, some girls who have a friend who was an exchange student in Australia last year- She has an AWESOME accent!! Everyone has been very very nice. Strangers (which is like EVERYONE, lol), classmates, teachers; so much for the rude French!

My French is coming along pretty well, but I still have difficulties understanding what people are saying. I understand my family, other host families, and most of what other students say to me. But I can’t for the life of me understand anything the teachers say! Even when they speak directly to me! The other day in History, we were going over WWII (or as they say here, La Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale), and my teacher looks at me and says “blah blah blah Roosevelt”. “Quoi???” “Blah blah blah parles de Roosevelt, s’il tu plait”. OHHH! Ok. Wait! Panic! “Which one?!” hahaha then I realized 1) my teacher doesn’t speak English, and 2) We’re talking about WWII, which one did I think she meant?! So I spoke (IN FRENCH!) about Roosevelt for like a minute or so (but it felt like forever). Haha, every time I have to speak French in class, I always have to take a deep breath afterwards! It’s so much work to get all the words I want/need out in the right order quickly enough to be understood. When I finished, the teacher said “Merci!” And with a bit of light-hearted sarcasm, I replied “De rien” (you’re welcome/ Of Nothing). But, you know it’s bad when even the lady who takes your lunch tray can tell you don’t speak the language…

But for now, pretty much everything is going really well. I don’t think I’m gonna get quite as fat as I had feared- My current host family is realllly realllly healthy, and they eat a ton of veggies all the time, and today I asked if they had any chocolate, but the only thing in the whole house that had any chocolate was ice cream! I thought I was in France!! Also, I walk sooo much here! My first week here, every night and morning I could feel the muscles in my legs and butt that were being over-worked from all the walking and stairs I had encountered.

I’ve been doing a good bit of touring around the area, and everything is so beautiful and historic. On Saturday I went to a sea town called Boulogne. I told my mom I went to Boulogne, and she said that her father had been in Boulogne right after D-Day in Normandy. But she also said it wasn’t much of a tourist spot then, June 1944.

I feel part tourist, part student. I have a bus card, a train card for students, a school ID card, keys to my house, all the things of someone who lives here and goes to school here. But I also carry around a dictionary, maps, and my American bank cards because I don’t have a French bank account yet. I go on weekend excursions to big, historic cities, see sights, buy postcards, take lots and lots of photos. It’s funny, but I guess this is what being an exchange student feels like. You can feel at home, but also know that it’s not quite home. Not yet anyways.

I have my first Rotary meeting tomorrow night, and I’m sure it’s going to be full of Bisous (cheek kisses) and “merci pour tout!”s (thanks for everything!). This has already been an amazing experience, and I’ve barely begun. C’est seulement le debut! It’s only the beginning! Thank you Rotary!!!

Gros bisous!!

Simone

October 7 Journal

Walking down the street from my school to the Centre Ville and then onto the Gare to catch a train to Lille to hangout with some of my exchange friends, I pass by sweet-scented, entrancing bakeries, nearly overpoweringly-smelly fisheries, countless specialty stores for wines or cheeses, and dozens of little boutiques which thrive on foot traffic. I confidently cross the roads knowing the French actually yield to pedestrians, and with a cautious eye I watch out for the presents left on the sidewalks by the local dogs. Typically dressed in Converse sneakers and an outfit of mostly black, grey, and blue jeans, I fit in fairly well and only provoke a curious look (which the French hide well), when I say more than a few words at a time.

It has now been six weeks since I’ve arrived in France, and it has probably been the most frustrating, most fascinating, most emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting six weeks of my life, but I’ve also experienced some of the most rewarding moments I could’ve imagined. This is no longer just a vacation, but a real life here, albeit different from the life of a normal French student, it is nonetheless a life. I go to school, I have friends, I speak French to teachers and students and my family, and hurry just as much as the other students to get in line as quickly as possible for lunch. Unlike my French counterparts, though, I don’t receive grades in class, and I’ve worked out a plan with my English teacher to attend extra classes to talk with some of the younger students to get them a little more excited about speaking English, which also gets me out of some of the 6 hours of Economics and 4 hours of Math I have everywhere which I don’t understand at all. I’ve also arranged to attend some lower-level Spanish classes in hopes to re-learn my first foreign language.

The French are anything but rude, having been incredibly warm and generous to me in every way. I love my Rotary club here, as they are very similar to my good-ole High Springs Rotary Club: usually between 15 and 20 older gentleman, many retired, meeting for dinner once a week to catch up about the goings-on of the area and to do a little bit of good for the world. I have one other exchange student in my club, Dario, from Argentina, who arrived in February, and in the chance he reads this, I’m not going to inflate his ego by detailing just how much I appreciate everything he has done for me so far during my exchange, and how I really don’t think it would have gone so well without such a helpful, experienced hand to show me the ropes. Something I really love about my Rotary district here (and I think most of France) is that we have “Oldies” and “Newbies”, for the kids who arrived about 4 or 5 months before from the opposite hemisphere. Mine are absolutely amazing, showing us the tricks of the trade of being an exchange student, what to take advantage of, pitfalls to avoid, where to get the best Kebab sandwiches, where there are free bathrooms, etc. You know, the important things in life!

I was recently talking to Hollie (outbound to Brazil), and she suddenly remarked that it’s incredible how much courage we have to be doing this exchange. But I quite honestly said that I don’t feel very courageous at all. I simply feel like I’m a living a life somewhere other than where I lived not so long ago. More than being rocked by the differences, I’ve been surprised and comforted by all the similarities I’ve found. Yes, the cars are smaller, and people don’t seem to use Dryers to dry their clothes, preferring to hang-dry even when it’s only 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but for the most part, life here is not drastically different than the life I’m accustomed to: children are still entertained by puppies, people eat almost all the same fruits and vegetables just in different ways and amounts, and when I turn on the radio, I’ll soon hear a song hailing from the US of A.

Being away from America and Americans, and seeing other perspectives has oddly enough made me a little more Patriotic and appreciative of my homeland. I was certainly not expecting such positive responses from people when I told them where I come from. In the English classes of the Seconde students (like Freshmen for French high school), when I tell them I come from the USA, I often get “Oh!!! Quelle chance!!” (Oh!!! What luck!!), which only increases in enthusiasm when I tell them I live in Florida. It never ceases to amuse me and give me a little pride to know I come from a place so well-regarded, even if only for our music, movies, TV, and clothing, which are the main reasons the kids cite.

Time here moves both so quickly and so slowly. At the same time that I cannot believe six entire weeks of my exchange have flown by, I also cannot believe that I didn’t know these wonderful people six weeks ago, I didn’t know the bus route until just a few weeks ago, and I didn’t know how to say almost anything in French just a few months ago. Some weeks go by so quickly, full of hours of lectures in school, outings with friends to buy frites before the bus comes, and whatever else that seems to fill my days. But then there are moments which seem to last forever, which I’m often finding myself wishing they would.

I’ll leave you with a short list of some things I’ve observed:

People park their cars on the sidewalks, and that’s the right thing to do.

The only way French people could possibly have enough nerve to drive in cities is to have almost complete disregard for their own health, and absolutely none for other drivers.

Pedestrian always have the right-of-way. So do any stray animals.

The only people NOT shocked by hugs are exchange students and their best friends.

Speaking in English with other students always gets looks, from very interested to disgust.

Teenagers are the same everywhere, they just dress better here.

December 3 Journal

How many times have I sat down and began to write this journal? I don’t even know anymore, but since before November I have been thinking of things that I wanted to share, to tell everyone. But time just moves so fast here, it’s not fair that life can take the days away in only 24hrs. I’m a product of my generation, and I feel an entitlement to have more hours in the day to enjoy the good times, but I’m also quite alright with letting the bad or gray or gloomy days slip into the deeper recesses of my memories, traces only to be left in my nightly journal. The last month and a half has been a mix of emotions, as such is the life on exchange. I have felt like there was no better place to be in the world than where I was at that moment, and there were times when it would have been fine to crawl away for a little while. Never, however, have I wanted to leave, unless it was to go on vacation somewhere else in Europe!

Back in mid-October there was an Inbound weekend for about 7 Rotary districts in Northern and Western France. Around 300 exchangers from something like 30 or more countries gathered on the beaches of Normandy at the beautiful Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel was once a religious sanctuary, as it was an inaccessible island when the tide was in, helping to keep out most people. For my district which is 7 hours from the coast of Normandy, it was a 3 day weekend, loading up buses at 7 am on Friday morning, and returning to our houses around 8 or 9pm Sunday evening. In between those times, we saw many WWII museums and memorials (including THE Normandy beach from D-Day), toured adorable little coastal towns, and also walked 13 kilometers (like 7 miles I think) barefoot on the hard Normandy sand around the “Mont” of Mont St. Michel. This latter event was a thinly-veiled attempt to tire-out the excited and always-ready exchange students, because Rotary had organized for all the students to have a dance after the dinner that night after the march (there were Rotarians at the back ‘threatening’ the slow students- that makes it a march, not just a walk). Thankfully their efforts didn’t stop us from having a great time together.

Unfortunately, I got a sprained foot from the march, but I didn’t even realize it until about 3 days later when the swelling went all the way down in one foot, but the other was still very tender and swollen. But that didn’t hinder me, either, from dancing until 2 am the night of the dance, along with many other students, determined to enjoy every minute with these amazing people. It was a chance to reconnect with a bunch of people from the flight from D.C., including some of my Florida buddies! I got some Sunshine State lovin’ with Bridget and Chauncey, which was one of the things that really made my weekend super awesome J. Another thing that gave me a little boost of confidence was that my district had progress interviews with all the August arrivals, and they graded everyone’s French, and they gave me 4.5 out of 5!!!! I’m not exactly sure what a 5 signifies, because I am still very very far from fluent, that is for sure, but I know that means that I did pretty well. I have to take joy in the little things!

The next weekend, Diana, her host parents (my second host parents), and I left for the Côte D’Azur, a.k.a., the French Riviera. I think I have found where I want to spend the rest of my days. White-capped mountains dropping into the bluest of blue waters that exist on Earth, all backed by a deep, brilliant blue sky which held the heat perfectly, and a sun which cast everything in a beautiful golden light during the day and a fuzzy pink haze in the evenings. We spent a week between Monaco and Cannes (where they have the Film Festival every year), visiting perfume factories, hand-blown glass workshops, beautifully ancient little towns, and eating some of the best, if not THE best, food of my life. It was pretty warm in the South, and everyday (save for the last) was a day of perfectly blue blue blue skies and maybe a puff of clouds here and there. After lunch most days, I had a chance to go to the pool or beach and take a little nap in my swimsuit. I always positioned my chairs, whether at lunch, a café, or the pool, to receive the most amount of sunlight as possible. It literally made me happy, as pathetic as that may sound. I think being in the grey North takes its toll on my spirits from time to time, so being in the Land of Sunshine and beaches was a little like heaven.

The weekend after the vacations for All Saints Day (Toussaints) were over, there was another Inbound Weekend, this time in my town for our district’s “Exotic Meals”. All the students had to make food typical of their country, an entrée and a dessert. With 41 students in my district, it certainly made for a really interesting array of flavors. I was very impressed to see some things that other countries eat regularly. The Asians all had surprisingly spicy food, but still really good. I made chicken in orange juice and white wine because that’s something typical of my house, even if not all the US. Other Americans made macaroni and cheese, pasta salad, and roasted potatoes, and for dessert we offered TONS of chocolate chip cookies, and a pumpkin pie. After the dinner and cleanup, all 40 some us (some Rotex came along) had a big sleepover in the upstairs loft of our YEO’s house. I don’t think I went to sleep until just before 6am. I love exchange students.

The following weekend (two and a half weeks ago), I moved to the family who took me and Diana to the Côte D’Azur, and they’ve also taken us to Boulonge-sur-Mer for a day trip to the beach, and Paris for a weekend. I had already spent a lot of time with them because of the trips hither-to, and also because I take a weekly tennis lesson with the host mom and I often spend the night after my lesson. So, it hasn’t been a difficult adjustment at all to live with them, and I think we get along really well already.

This past weekend, I made a Thanksgiving dinner for 16 people, with help of course! On Saturday, my host mom and I started cooking around 3 in the afternoon, and later 3 of my girl friends came over (an Aussie, Diana from Colombia, and a French Rotex who went to Australia last year) to give me a hand preparing the desserts and side dishes, and whatever else needed to be done. My host mom dealt with the turkey, thank God, because that was a challenge I wasn’t entirely too keen taking on. I did, however, stuff the turkey and then suture it up quite well. So well, in fact, that when my host mom was inspecting my work, she said that in France, they would say that because I can dress a turkey well, I’m good marriage material! Haha!

In any case, I tried to make the menu as authentic of an American Thanksgiving as possible in a country which calls cranberries a “rare fruit”, sweet potatoes don’t exist, and there is no condensed cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, cream cheese, or many other ingredients we take for granted in the USA. I experimented with making cranberry sauce out of dried cranberries which my host mom had found by the hand of Grace, and she made thick cream of mushroom soup. We made, in the end, salmon mouse in cherry tomatoes and an artichoke dip with tortilla chips for starters, then mashed potatoes, corn pudding, pearl onions in cream sauce, stuffing in the turkey and stuffing out of the turkey, sweet potato casserole from a box of mix my mom sent me, perfect cranberry sauce (tasted just like the stuff from the can, only better!), lots of turkey, lots of green bean casserole, then lemon meringue, chocolate pudding, and pecan pies for dessert. I think I blew my host mom’s mind when I told her we cook green beans in the oven. Through all this, though, I have a feeling that next year, living in a college dorm, I will be cooking all the time, taking advantage of the ease with which one can cook in America.

This next weekend I’m going to Strasbourg by the French-German border to see the Marche de Noel (Christmas Market and festival). It’s supposed to be the most beautiful in France, and there’s a good chance it will be snowing, too, just to add to the Christmas wonder! I’ll be going with my third host family, Dario, and Diana (who is currently living with them). This will be a great opportunity to see a European Christmas celebration at it’s finest!

In school I’m slowly making more friends, or at least on that track with more people. It took me awhile to realize that it was up to me to start talking to people, that they weren’t necessarily going to come up to me and start chatting all on their own. I’ve seen that the more people I speak with, the more they talk back, the more people I have to bisous in the hallways, the more people I have to eat lunch with when my regular girls aren’t there. I used to kinda feel like the kids were a bit closed, but I’m finding that to not be true if I make the effort to be open with them. And that’s a bit what being here is about, right? Opening up to new people and new things and learning and teaching? It seems that way, because that’s what feels good and right to do here.

Other than being flattered by Rotary thinking my French is pretty good, I can feel that it’s getting better by the kind of conversations I’ve been able to have. With my second host mom, I’ve discussed things like the death penalty (which is not legal in France, but there is currently a lot of debate to change that), educational systems, economics, health care systems, and so many other complex subjects. Also, when I’m speaking in English to people who are NOT in France, I have to stop myself from using basic French phrases which just flow next-to-naturally now. Sure, there are many times almost every day when I don’t understand, can’t say what I really want, or am not understood because of my accent or I just plain messed up, but these interruptions in trying to live ‘normally’ are becoming less and less frequent. I recently had a dream in which I went back to Florida for a few weeks, as if for vacation, knowing I’d be returning to France, but when I was in Florida I was trying to speak to people in French, which obviously didn’t work too well. Despite not being able to speak back home, it made me realize that I’ve started to have dreams in French!!! Even though it wasn’t entirely in French, it is still a good start! I feel like learning another language is like holding keys which open magic doors. What lies behind those doors is one of the most treasured and beautiful things known to mankind: Communication. With communication, knowledge can only continue, friendships made and strengthened, eyes opened to insights never even hinted at before. I’m finding these keys one at a time, and I can’t wait for all the doors to swing wide open for me.

Thank you, Rotary, for giving me the chance to do this, to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I wouldn’t change where I am for anything.

Gros Bisous,

Simone

March 15Journal

The 4 month mark passed right at Christmas while skiing in the French Alps with my hosties and Diana. The 5 month mark was a going-away party for a friend on a half-year exchange. The 6 month mark passed welcoming our Newbies, the new Southern-hemisphere arrivals to our Rotary district here, which has made me and my August-arriving comrades official Oldies, a day once-believed unthinkable. I’d like to believe that this time has never gone to waste or passed in vain. Perhaps I could spend a lot less time online and more time reading in French (working on Frankenstein right now), but other than that I feel like I’ve taken almost every possible opportunity to go out and live this life to the fullest.

So here I am, mid-March, shocked at that fact, shaking my French-thinking head, and regarding the warm, clear blue sky with suspicion, as it’s an old friend I haven’t seen in quite some time, one who could change to clouds and snow by tomorrow.

Where I’ve been and how the time has truly passed would take forever to recount (believe me- I’ve written that Rotary journal and it was wayyyyyy too long). I could go weekend to packed weekend, detailing every adventure through this incredible country, laughs with friends, tears when saying au revoir to our Oldies, but through it all some common themes would be found:

I love France and would quite prefer to never leave (except maybe for sunny vacations to visit Florida when it gets a tad bit too grey here…).

I have amazing host families who have been very kind and extremely generous with their time and resources (I’ve been to Strasbourg for the annual Christmas market, skiing at one of the best ski stations in France, seen a ballet at the Paris Opera house, and vacationed in Corsica for a week- all in the last three and a half months)

The friends I have made here, in particular the other exchange students are incredible and unforgettable people. The experiences I’ve shared with them all truly have made my exchange just as wonderful, if not better, than I could have imagined.

I’ve recently started on my 4th journal book since being in France, so my thoughts could go on for kilometers (the unit of measure for everyone ELSE); However, certain moments and memories stand out among them rest:

The sound of thousands of bottles of champagne popping just after midnight on New Years while standing among millions of people in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The sense of awe and peace I felt while seeing the endless snow-covered mountain ranges of the Haute-Savoie in the French Alps.

Dancing until 3 am on a Thursday night with my oldies and then being only 5 minutes late for class the next morning (after taking an hour of trains to get there).

Walking into a church I’d never heard of in the Latin Quarter in Paris while it was snowing outside, and finding a woman singing hymns with an organ and walls covered in hundreds-of-years-old paintings, faded and crumbling away.

Crying like a baby when saying goodbye to my oldies.

Thinking I might leave this world for good while the plane to Corsica dipped and dived in high winds in the mountains of the little island.

Almost getting asked to leave the Louvre with Bridget (Outbound to France).

How I am supposed to leave this new life, this new world I’ve found and fallen in love with, I’m not sure. I do know that I have 4 months left and I plan on having zero regrets when I do leave. So here’s to 4 more months of good fun, great food, and my lovely lovely France!

Tchin!!

May 19 Journal

During the time spent on exchange, one’s mind is constantly filled with thoughts. Even for those more or less philosophical, the thought process will be pushed to its limits. This creates amazing things, but more often than not, this will lead to incredible fatigue. Everyone wonders why exchange students are always so exhausted when it often seems that we aren’t exerting much energy, but I promise that we are, in fact, burning thousands of calories by all the little or not so little notes that pass through our minds.

At the beginning of exchange, the mind is over-loaded with information, trying it’s very hardest to make sense, learn, and continue to function as normally as possible in situations that may seem terribly abnormal. Between the new language, culture, and environment, an exchange student goes through a mental whip-lash.

After a few months, this early whip-lash heals, and things start to settle where they should be. The thoughts turn into those of the host language, the culture becomes part of one’s own habits also, and the environment becomes to feel more and more like home and a natural environment. The mind relaxes and starts to work at a more average rate, still learning, processing, and making many efforts, but more easily now.

As time hits a climax, and the descent begins, thoughts may start to become stressed in the opposite way, worrying about what’s left to come, perhaps trying to fit as much in as possible, thinking about time passed and time to come, things learned, things yet to learn, what’s been done, what is left to do. Just after the mid-way point, a strange phenomenon comes over exchange students. We feel that tomorrow will be our departure date, time is running out, and that this year, this life, these incredible and strange series of events will soon be ending. This may lead to a strange combination of thoughts and emotions, a mix between fears of leaving, perhaps a bit of happiness to see those we left in what sometimes seems like a past life or yesterday, and often much confusion. Perhaps even frustration. Everyone sets these little benchmarks in their mind, saying by such and such point in time they will have reached this said goal. That time may lie anywhere along the course, but by the halfway point one might feel like language, social, and cultural goals should be met. If these aren’t met, stress can ensue. If they have been met, well, I know at least personally, it’s not always easy to see the progress one has made when we can see how much further there is left to go.

Right now, I feel as though I’ve long passed almost all those well-known benchmarks: Dreaming in the host language, holidays, real friendships that have evolved in another language, weight gain (just a lil’ bit!), stints of homesickness, and those ups and downs which are all part of the process. So here I am, with 2 months left before I board that big white bird heading back over the Atlantic. 61 days to check off the last few things on my To-Do. I feel like in this ever-quickening descent things are already winding down. Next week Diana, the only other exchange student in my town, will be going back home. Her school in Colombia starts in mid-July, and she still have some loose ends to tie up before starting at the University. Then my district will have our last Rotary weekend, where we will receive our little diplomas, and then cry our eyes out. Then I’ll celebrate my 19th birthday (gettin’ old!). After that will be the end of the school year. Then my parents and cousin come for two weeks, during which time most of the kids in my district will be heading off in their own directions. Then my school will have its version of Senior Prom (but a LOT less extravagant), then the French National Holiday on the 14th, then I will have only a few more days to soak in my last moments of exchange before that July 20th D-Day. Yes, my own personal D-Day. Departure Day. Oh, how I am not looking forward to that day. Sure, it won’t be all bad. First of all, Chauncey, Bridget and I are all on the same flight to the US and then Florida, so we will have company to cry in. And, yeah, I’m looking forward to stopping off at Publix on the way home from the airport to get crispy Fried Chicken and SWEET TEA! Then the next day I’m heading to St. Augustine Beach for a little get-together with RYE FL’s newest group of Rebounds. And, of course, seeing my family and friends, all that shebang. So obviously my first few days should be alright.

But outside of that… the idea of leaving this country of tiny cars, tiny roads, and huge appetites when the occasion calls, it scares me. I was anxious about coming, but I was also very ready to leave and discover something brand new which I’d been looking forward to for almost my entire life. And now, here I am, fulfilling all those dreams and expectations, without a doubt experiencing the most incredible year of my life. I have host families who I love, and who really care about me, and I cannot imagine not seeing on a regular basis (for those whom I don’t live with anymore). I have friends, French and foreign, who have become such normal yet important parts of my everyday life now. The French language, which even with it’s confusing rules and booby-traps, I love so much and could listen to forever. And oh, France, the beautiful lady, La France, elle me plait. I wish I could articulate all the nuances which entrance me, the lifestyle which even at its simplest still has a touch of class.

Enfin bref, I’ll stop fretting for the moment, I just need to tell myself to take a little breath, stop the churning in my stomach, and enjoy every last hour I have here. I feel the Belgian beaches calling to me soon…

I’d also like to fill in a few details of my adventures, going back a for a good moment. I’ve actually cut this in half, only covering through January. In the next few days I’ll put up February to the present!

The Christmas Market in Strasbourg was great! The oldest Christmas market in France, dating back about 400 years, it’s also the largest, with hundreds of little vendors in little wooden huts. We had fantastic weather, too, clear and mild, so there were easily thousands of people in Strasbourg for the market. We also saw the symbolic bird of the region of Alsace, which is the Stork, you know, the baby-carrying kind. Turns out that story is the same one told in France, as well as Colombia (Diana) and Argentina (Dario)!

The next weekend was the last Rotary weekend with our Oldies. They all left between the end of December and the middle of January, so this was the last opportunity for all of us to be together. We put on our own Christmas Market to raise money for our trips, and then we had a musical evening of talent, where several students played instruments, danced, or sang. Me and another American, Cholpon from North Dakota, did an a capella version of Silent Night (in English) which was rather good, if I do say so for never singing together before that night! After the ‘spectacle,’ our Youth Exchange Officer gave out the Diplomas to the Oldies, which was the beginning of a good many tears. After a small tear-fest, we did all that we could do- We danced the night away!

(I hope you all are still reading this… Sorry about it being so long!!!)

A week later, I was in the car with Diana and my host family at 4:30 AM heading to the Alps for a week of skiing. It was my first time to ever go skiing, and certainly the first time to ever see so much snow. It had been snowing for about two days straight before we left, and the snow continued while we drove south. Not that I remember much of that, sleeping most of the way except for a coffee and pastry stop and later lunch time. We spent the next 8 days in what became my own personal Snow Globe. When we arrived to the mountain range and began mounting the steep drive, the snowflakes were swirling around in the wind, going in every-which-way, eventually falling and attaching themselves to whatever solid object they first encountered on their descent from the Heavens to the river and gorge which lay below. I was truly awe-struck by the grandeur and natural beauty of the Alps. Skiing was a great way to really see some of the nature, especially if you go as slowly as I did! Hah, no, I picked up skiing pretty well, finding my balance and getting my act together nicely. I can’t wait to do it again!!

We stayed in the mountains until December 26th, which meant we spent Christmas there. This was certainly different from any Christmas I’ve ever had before, and perhaps because of the snow, the tiny tree decorated with gift ribbon because we didn’t have ornaments, or the lack of the weird smell my heater makes in Florida at Christmas time, because it hasn’t been used in many months, but it didn’t really feel like Christmas. We went to the evening Mass at the small church in the ski station, and there I felt like it was Christmas, having passed the last 7 or so Christmas Eves in the choir loft at my own church in Gainesville. Despite the differences, and perhaps even because of some of them, I had a great Christmas Holiday. Skiing at 9am on Christmas day (we opened our gifts on Christmas Eve) was certainly something I wouldn’t get the chance to do in Florida!

After getting back from the Alps, I spent a few days in Dunkirk visiting my Australian friend, Holly, one of my Oldies. We made cookies, watched movies in English, and talked and talked and talked. Not too good for the French, but good for the soul, sometimes!

When I got back from Dunkirk, I got the Rotary Go-Ahead I’d been waiting for, letting me know I could spend New Year’s Eve in Paris at a friend’s place. Paris on New Year’s Eve is absolutely incredible. During the afternoon we climbed up the stairs to the Cathédrale du Sacré Cœur (Sacred Heart Cathedral) which gave us a great view of the city, even on a foggy winter night. The energy the city had was palpable, filled with tourists and French people from all the sprawling outskirts of Paris, and all their friends who paid a visit for the night. Millions of people, packed super tight everywhere they went, the city was filled. When my friends and I finally pushed our way as far up in the crowd as we could get, it turned out that the couple in front of us was from Miami, of all the places! Just another reminder that I’m never too far away. Le Monde est petit! The world is small! And the Paris metro is even smaller. What a battle that was. One which we lost. We still ended up walking a good hour after we couldn’t get anymore metros… But no prob, a nice calm stroll after all the excitement does everyone a bit of good. And there wasn’t any snow or ice to be seen!

The following week was a different story, however. For my host sister’s birthday in August, her parents had gotten tickets for her to see a ballet at the Paris Opera House to see a dance by her favorite choreographer, Bejart (my host sister used to be an avid dancer when she was younger). Her parents had also bought a ticket for the mom, and knowing they would likely have an exchange student living with them, they got one with the idea that student could come if they wanted. Well, that student was me, and I couldn’t have said “OUIIIIII!!!” faster or more enthusiastically! Leaving after lunch Friday on the TGV (only takes an hour to go from my town to central Paris) and staying until the afternoon Saturday, it was only about a 24hour stay in the big city, but it was great. The Opera House is very beautiful, very old (there’s a modern one in a different part of town), and much smaller than I expected, but nevertheless impressive. The ballet was modern and kinda kooky, but also mesmerizing with the way the dancers moved and twisted their bodies. I’m no dancer, but I can see that not just anyone can move like that.

The next day it started snowing while we were eating breakfast. It continued to snow for most of the morning, a slow, clean snow, no harsh winds, making it still pleasant to be out and about. We spent Saturday in the Latin Quarter, visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral, La Sorbonne University, and enjoying walking the cramped and crooked alleys of the original city of Paris, the heart of the city. With the fresh white blanket deafening any noises, this city which just one week ago was filled to the brim with people and noise was suddenly a calm, peaceful sanctuary while I walked along the Seine running next to the courtyard of the Notre Dame. My host mom told me I was extremely lucky to be able to see Paris like that. In all her 40-some years, she’d only see Paris under a new snow maybe once or twice, and still never as much snow as we got that day (maybe 2 inches that stuck to the ground). It seems like just one more occasion when I’ve been graced by chance this year.

Rotary, thank you for everything! If it weren’t for you, I’d be in college right now, worrying about finals. Instead, I’m wrapping up an extraordinary international adventure!

Merci!! Bisous!! – Simone

July 9 Journal

With less than 2 weeks left, it’s all winding down. The Good-byes are starting, the ‘lasts’ are in full swing. I’m trying to optimize the time between friends, host families, traveling, and just getting everything done to make that possible. Despite the fact that I don’t have regular extra-curricular activities here, or even ‘curricular’ activities, either, I somehow manage to fill my days and still procrastinate from doing other things.

I remember reading one of the former exchangers from Florida wrote in a journal that Rotary was almost being cruel, giving us an amazing year, full of adventure and emotions, a new life, a new self even sometimes, and then we have to say Good-Bye to so much of it, maybe to never come back again. Even as I live my life here, knowing in my mind that I’m not actually French, I wasn’t born here, and have only been here for 10 months, it’s already impossible to imagine myself and my life without all that I have here. Leaving my new friends, families, habits, favorites… It’s all too surreal…

I’m gonna go back a little bit, and give an idea of how I’ve filled some of my days this spring time!

In February, I spent several days in Rouen visiting Bridget. We had a great time, cooking, eating, talking (there seems to be a trend here…). Then we decided to expand the RYE FL reunion, and we hopped over to Paris to pay a visit to our Momma Rotex, Anne Breedlove, the one and only. Former Rotary exchanger from Florida to Belgium, she was studying in Paris this spring, and happened to have a very comfortable floor in her cozy Parisian apartment. She was pretty busy with classes, so Bridget and I toured the city a bit. It was on this excursion when the security guards at the Louvre almost asked us to leave. I guess they didn’t care for me lounging out on a bench next to ancient Roman statues, or that Bridget was drinking from a water bottle there, either. But no biggie! We know that Rotary Smile well!

After I got back from Paris, I showered, unpacked dirty clothes, took a nap, ate, and repacked fresh clothes. The next morning I headed to Corsica for a week with Diana and her host family (they were supposed to be my third host family, but I ended up not changing families like normal in January). After a fairly terrifying flight of bouncing around above cragged mountains tops, we were rerouted to the other side of the small island, for a safer plane landing. This was ensued by a 3 hour bus ride through those ever twisty-turny mountain roads. This was followed by a very long line at the car rental place, which was followed by us getting lost trying to find our rental apartment. Somewhere around 10pm we finally started getting settled into our vacation on the beautiful Mediterranean Island. The next morning, it snowed. The rest of the vacation ended up being quite nice, a bit colder and rainier than expected, but very pleasant nonetheless. Corsica is a piece of wild beauty, completely different from the well manicured metropolitan France which I know. It was refreshing to see untamed beauty for the first time in a very long time.

After flying back up to the North, we spent the last weekend of the 2 week February vacations at the host family’s mountain home near Strasbourg. It snowed a good part of the weekend, giving me plenty of time to start planning my parents’ vacation in France in June. And perhaps I threw a few snowballs, too.

The next weekend was a Rotary Inbound weekend, and we welcomed our Newbies (only 4). We also had the Country Presentations, where a couple representatives of each country in our district gave a PowerPoint presentation all about their country and customs. Each country was allotted 10 minutes. We have about 15 countries who presented (Southern Hemisphere didn’t, they just got here). Most were quite interesting, but I will admit to dozing off somewhere between Taiwan and the Philippines… Sorry!

Not long after all that, I had the chance to go to London and stay with some friends for a week. The city was great, very different from the cities in France, and the people were also quite different from the French. It was very strange to be surrounded (well, mostly) by English again, strangers speaking to each other, and understanding almost every single word (except for those weird words that are only said within the Queen’s territory). I was every bit the Tourist, hitting up all the photo Ops, going to a comedy club, and seeing a play on the West End (Wicked! It was INCREDIBLEEEEE!!!). We started off trying to be good, visiting museums, but then we ended up just taking photos in front of the landmarks and trying to keep warm. I had a fantastic little English getaway, and I can’t wait for the next time I can have a PROPER English Afternoon Tea!! Scones, clotted cream, jam… mmmhhh…

In the middle of March, Rotary had a multi-district long-weekend in the City of Lights, Paris. About 90 exchange students from 5 district participated, and I have to say it was one of the best Rotary weekends I’ve ever had. The pure insanity and fun, it was unforgettable. Making new friends, seeing people from the flight and the last Multi-district weekend in October, and just feeding off the energy of everyone else, it was wonderful. And Paris wasn’t that bad, either, haha!

I actually went home a little early from the Paris weekend, skipping out on the trip to Versailles to go home and get ready for a little trip to Belgium. A while back at a Rotary meeting, I was talking with some Rotarians about my future plans, saying that I want to be a veterinarian. Well, turns out one of the men, his daughter is in veterinary school in Liege, Belgium (about 2 hours by train from Lille). So I left the Rotary weekend, pulled a similar trick to the one I did before I left for Corsica, but left the same day, later in the afternoon, to spend a few days with the daughter of the Rotarian. I loved it! There was a moment during this year when I was debating if veterinary medicine was really what I wanted to pursue, or instead perhaps follow a path along the lines of language studies. But after the visit to the school, and finding myself in an anatomy lab once again, there was no denying that this is where my passions truly lie. And if I could do that in Europe, well, that is certainly something worth taking a look at!

A week after I got back from Belgium, it was April 1st, which started the 12-day BusTrip! Racing from city to city, somehow managing to find time to take about 1500 photos, it was fantastic. Once again, I played the part of a tourist: I had a beer in Munich, I got a charm for my necklace from the original Swarvoski store in Austria, visited Juliet’s real balcony in Verona (and saw the love-note covered entry way to the courtyard, which truly took my breath away), took a gondola ride in Venice and have a festive mask to mark the memories, I bought a hand-painted watercolor piece from a street artist in Florence, and took the epic “pushing” photos with the Leaning Tower in Pisa. I also bought chocolate in Switzerland, ate pasta for almost every meal for a week in Italy, and had more gelato than one would think is possible. Good times, good times.

The weekend after I got back from the BusTrip, I changed to my third and final host family. I had been with my second host family for five months, and I really feel as if I have another family across the Atlantic. Before I even moved in with my second family, I already knew it would be good, and it was, to say the very least. It was almost too easy for me to love the family- from the New Year until I left, we watched the entire series of West Wing (Martin Sheen as the President of the US, it ran for seven seasons, and was a great and realistic depiction of life and work in the White House), one, two, sometimes three episodes in one night, after dinner, on the couch, normally while eating some yummy chocolate. With my REAL American parents, we did the EXACT same thing, except it was when I was younger, and we would all cuddle in the bed with the dogs, but otherwise the same- after dinner, chocolate, West Wing. Not too hard to adjust, eh? So leaving was pretty hard, but I only live a twenty minute bus ride away now, and more than month after I’ve moved, I still see my second host mom once or twice a week for lunch (they live less than a five minute walk from the high school). When my parents and my cousin come, they will be staying there for our time in the North of France. And when I leave for the US, I’ll spend my last few days with them, and they’ll drive me to the airport for the final Au Revoirs, at least for now. It was with them that my French made the amazing strides which it has, that I have seen and learned so much about France, that I have grown into the person I am now. I have been lucky with all the families I have had this year, but to find people who are so well suited for me to live with, that certainly goes above and beyond what one can expect.

My new host family is great, too, in different ways. My new host sister just turned 18, so it’s nice to have a host sister with the same age (my other host sisters have been in their early twenties and were only home on the weekends). She was also a Rotary Exchange student last year, when she spent her Junior year in Frederick, Maryland. We never speak in English, but she sometimes helps me when I forget or don’t know a word, and we talk about the US pretty often, especially the differences in high schools. It’s been great to have someone around who really understands what it’s all like, this whole crazy exchange life deal. And even though all of my families are from the Northern area of France, my current family is very much ‘Northern’, which has also been different. They’ve shown me a part of the France that is incredibly regionalized, speaking with the northern accent and dialect even, the habits and oddities of our region, truly embodying the spirit if the Nord.

Just a few days after changing families, Bridget paid me a visit for the weekend (well, Friday evening to Tuesday evening is mostly days during the weekend…). We had a Rotary weekend, which was an exotic dinner, so all the students made a dish typical of their country. She made sweet potato pie, and I made a tuna pasta salad. So once again, we cooked, ate, and talked and talked, but this time we had another 40 exchange students to join us! This was also Bridget’s first visit to the region of Nord Pas de Calais, the most Northeastern region in France. Well, one shining example which sums some things up quite well: “I like having the Red-Necks in the North for once! It changes things up for me a bit.” Voila, Thank you, Bridget.

In the beginning of June, I had the amazing chance to attend the French Open, also known as the Roland Garros in France, in Paris with my second host parents. I’ve been playing tennis regularly for the last 5 years or so, so when my host parents proposed this to me a few months ago… well, actually, I didn’t know how to react because I didn’t recognize the name they used, Roland Garros. It was only later when asking my real dad (the really big tennis fan in the family) if he knew of a big tennis tournament in early June (I couldn’t remember at what point in the year the French Open was held), when I realized that my hosties were taking me to the biggest tennis tournament in France! It was the day of the Quarter-Finals, and on our court we say Serena Williams get defeated by an Australian, and then Rafael Nadal beat a fellow Spaniard. They were fantastic to watch in person, but it must be said that they were long. Made all the shorter, however, by trips to get ice cream and do a bit of shopping in the boutiques!

Other than all that, I’ve had little day or weekend trips all over the North, which has either shown me that my former coal-mining region actually does have some natural beauty, or I’ve gotten rained on. I’ve also been to Paris a few more times (I think I’m up to 8 times now?), eaten wayyyyyy too much amazing food (not Rotary 15, but… I’ll be nice to myself and say 5… my pants may tell a different tale), and just generally been enjoying myself.

I did my presentation for my Rotary club recently, telling them all they wanted to know (and plenty they never thought to ask) about the USA, Florida, Gainesville, and my life before France. I think they enjoyed it! I can’t wait to show and tell my Rotary back home everything about this year, and how much I truly appreciate everything everyone has done to make this year absolutely extraordinary. Thank you, Rotary, for everything!!

Bisous!!

Simone

July 19 Journal

“All good things must come to an end.” Even if I am not always in agreement with this statement, it does hold some truth. In my case, this amazing, unforgettable, eye-opening, life-changing thing must come to an end. But at the same time as I say ‘end’, it’s really just the ending of this chapter. Exchange students with RYE FL know very well that “Once an Exchange Student, Always an Exchange Student.” Al Kalter has told us many times that the process of being an exchange students lasts a minimum of about three years- Year 1, the year of preparation, trying to learn the language, gearing up for the exchange, getting in contact with future host families, etc; Year 2, the actual year of the Exchange, living in the foreign country, learning the language, and immersing oneself in the culture; then Year 3, the ‘Rebound’ year, re-assimilating oneself into their native culture, language, and lifestyle, and learning how to find a balance between what they’ve learned and experienced the year before with where they live and are doing now. That’s the minimum, and between hosting exchange students later, becoming part of Rotex, and continuing to share the ‘Rotary Gospel,’ the experience of being an exchange student can go on and on.

I’m leaving tomorrow, and no matter how many times I say that, or look at the calendar, or say to my friends back in Florida “Ok, how’s Thursday for meeting up…,” it doesn’t seem the slightest bit true. That today is the last day I will spend more of my time speaking French rather than English, watching TV only on French, riding around my little French town which hasn’t excited me in about 10 months, none of it seems real. Despite the contact I have kept with people back home, the photos, and my life I had before, sometimes it feels like it was a dream, and the life I’m living now is the normal one.

At the same time, I see very well that my time here has to come to an end- the children of my host families who went on exchange are all back now, almost all the other students in my district have gone home, my French friends are leaving for their family vacations or summer jobs elsewhere. I also see that my life in the US will pick up and continue when I get home- friends, outings, then college will start a mere month after I return. I’m doing my best to be reasonable and think clearly about it all, so when people ask how I feel about going back, I give a meek smile and vague answers about a good year ending, but I need to go back to school and all. I give them run-of-the-mill responses, knowing that if I started talking about how much this year means to me, and how impossible it seems to just get on a plane and fly away from it all, I won’t be able to control my recently highly-active facial sprinkler system. I can only have so many tissue packets in my purse at one given moment!

Last week, the results of the BAC were released. The BAC (Baccalaureate exam) is a test given to all French students at the end of their last year in High School. It is at the same time their graduation from all their classes, a cumulative exam for almost all the subjects they have studied throughout high school, and admission to all the public universities in France (Private colleges often have other tests and applications, on top of the scores from the BAC). At my school, the principal stood behind a lectern and called out the name of all the students who passed, and the ‘mentions’ which are given for having scores in certain ranges (Quite Well, Well, and Very Well). Almost all the teachers of the senior classes come to congratulate the students, and wish everyone good luck for the future, as it is the last time they will see most of the students (there is no ceremony of Graduation in France like there is in the USA). I saw most of my teachers there, which was great, some final ‘Au Revoir’s (goodbyes) and ‘Merci’s. I’ve become pretty close with my English teacher, who is an absolute angel, even having dinner at her house when my parents and cousin came for two weeks in June. I wasn’t too surprised but was very flattered when she said that she thinks I was the best exchange student she’s ever had in her classes (my school normally has between 3 and 5 exchange students a year), but I was moved to tears when my history teacher told me how much she appreciated the efforts I made, and that she, too, thinks of me to be one of the best exchange students she’s ever had in her classes. The sincerity of things like that coming from teachers I never even took tests for is really touching, a reminder that this isn’t just a year in MY life, but I, too, play a role, however minor or major, in the lives of those around me.

When my parents and cousin came in June, we spent most of the second week in the North of France, staying in my town here, Lens, at my second host family’s house. That week we had a dinner with all my host families, my ‘godmother’ and ‘godfather’ of Rotary, and a couple other friends. I had done a similar event for Thanksgiving back in November, but this time it was also a way for my family to meet all my OTHER families. While we were all having the ‘apéritifs,’ my parents said a few words, which I translated. They expressed their gratitude for everything everyone has done for me this year, that they can’t thank them enough for taking such good care of me, and they were so happy to see that I was in such good hands, surrounded by people who truly love and care about me. Once again, this didn’t finish with dry eyes. As sappy as some of this may sound, it was almost startling to realize that this group of people, about 20 people gathered for a summer evening with drinks in the garden, was all held together by certain a remarkable string: Rotary Youth Exchange. Each and every person present was in one way or another deeply involved in the exchange program, and by extension me, too. I’ve spent this year with these people, these families, living my life, and also being a part of theirs. Despite the students before and the ones who will come after, it’s incredible to realize that my desire to live in France for a year has also truly affected so many others, people completely unknown to me one year ago, but now I can’t imagine my life without.

I know when I return to the States, people will ask about how I’ve changed. For the moment, I can’t really say just how much I’ve changed, because for me it’s been a natural process. But more than ‘changing’ (I certainly don’t feel shockingly different), this year has been about becoming more of who I am, who I was, who I will be, stronger, wiser, and overall more capable of taking control of my life and what I want to do with it.

I keep saying that it’s all over, but I know that it’s not true. I know that I’m going to come back to France and see my families again, my friends will come visit me, and I’ll go see my buddies in Australia, New Zealand, South America, all over North America, and God knows all the other places that are my list! My memories are not going to disappear when I get back to Florida, the photos will not vanish, and the changes in my life will not be washed away by the Florida beaches.

Words escape me to express the depth of my appreciation for Rotary, for all they have done, lives changed forever, horizons widened while the world is made a bit smaller.

Encore une fois,

Merci beaucoup au Rotary!

Gros Bisous ! -Simone

Tiffany’s Bio

Hi! My name is Tiffany Chavez. I’m seventeen years of age, I live in Bradenton, Sarasota and I have two sisters and one brother. I’m a sophomore in Manatee School of The Arts. The school focuses on the Arts such as Dance, Theater, Art, etc., as well as having academic courses.

As you can see I’m an art lover, music and dance are what relaxes me, but God is what inspires me and who I firmly believe in. I’m an invert, quiet, timid individual and yet I can be pretty loud and hyper at times. I’m as organized as I am disorganized. Trying new and wacky things are my areas of expertise.

I was born in South America, Bolivia; I lived and studied there for many years. I have always been traveling from one place to another as we have been moving. My mom is American, she’s finishing up her PHD in leadership and my dad is Hispanic, he works at a construction company. We recently moved up to Florida in the beginning or so of July.

I’m very exited to have been chosen, and to have the chance to go to another country to study! This is a chance of a lifetime, something that I have always yearned for. As for Turkey, a country rich in history and culture, the more I began to read about Turkey the more thrilled I get and want to set of on my journey.

I believe that this trip will help me and encourage me in all aspects of my life. I hope to inspire other young teens in my school or in my neighborhood to be open minded about other cultures and languages. I hear someone say that learning another language was useless; I believe it opens a new window to understanding the world around us.

Life passes by fast and I want to take advantage of the time to explore other countries, learn their culture and language, as well as understand their traditions. There is so much to explore out in the world, and I’m thankful that the Rotary Youth Exchange Program has given me this chance and is helping me reach my goals and aspirations.

Join me on my one year’s perilous journey in Turkey. I don’t know what awaits me in Turkey, but that makes it all the more adventurous. Right?

Your Adventurer

Tiff

 Tiffany’s Journals

September 4th Journal

I have so much to tell you that I will start from the very very beginning.

As you count down the days you leave to Turkey you get more and more exited. You can’t imagine that you are really going. As the days draw closer you begin to think, “This is not a good idea” … “I don’t know if I am ready” … “Maybe I shouldn’t go” … “I could pretend that I am really sick and not go”. Well maybe not to that extreme. hehehe

Turkey…..I was excited! Everyday I waited anxiously to know were I would be going. As I began to know who I would be staying with and where in Turkey I would be living, people would ask me “How do you feel about going to Turkey?” “Are you excited?” I would say, “I am excited and nervous” …and afraid, worried, I don’t know if I want to really go, those I would keep to myself.

I was really nervous. I would be leaving the day after we would move to our new home. The whole week before I left we spent packing. We moved our stuff on Saturday to our new home on the opposite side from our old home. The next day, at 11:00 am on Sunday the 23rd of August, I left. It was a tiring week and as I said goodbye to my family I knew that it was really happening. I am really going to Turkey.

Istanbul … I arrived on the 24th at 1:00pm or so. I am in Istanbul I could not believe it. I had made three friends on the flights here and all of them were really nice. :D. One of them was an exchange student, O.P., I think. I also met Sumru who is living in Istanbul and she gave me helpful information about what to do and what to expect. I had met only one Rotarian on my trip, Liz, we were together until Amsterdam and were off to our next flights. We had a good short time together.

When you think that you are prepared for what you will be facing you really are far from prepared. I could not understand anybody when I had arrived. Even with the little Turkish I know and they spoke so fast. All I could understand was Hayer and Evert….yes and no hehehe

I passed through passport check and went outside. An image came to mind, my new family standing outside waiting for me with BIG smiles on their faces and I would have a BIG smile on my face and I would embrace them and …!!! Well… I did meet someone there but it was not my host family. My family did not know that I was coming that day. It was my own fault – I had not checked to see if they knew when I would arrive.

I was welcomed by a Rotarian, Mr. Mustafa and two other Rotexes, Mr. Bulut and Mr. Genç. They were really nice and helped me get home. It was a long ride but I got to see a good bit of Turkey. The traffic is pretty bad here and I think you need to be a professional driver to drive in Istanbul.

Later that day, after introducing ourselves, we all had dinner, and I went to go to bed and I checked my suitcases and realized … that I had picked up the wrong suitcase. I could not believe it! I had gotten very nervous when I was told my family was not there, that when we went to pick up the my suitcases I got the one that looked like mine and I did not check to see if my name was on it. Ohhhh and I was really embarrassed. I felt horrible. The airport was a good ways away…..and also the suitcase belonged to someone who was staying only for a day in Istanbul. The next day I had exchanged the suitcase for mine…..so it is all good. BUT I had learned a lesson hehehe.

I got to know a good bit of Istanbul’s two sides on my way to my new home. ‘Cami’ which means Mosques, They were everywhere! I did not think there was so many. Tall apartment buildings would surround you, on top of hills and beside the ocean. It was beautiful!

My host family is very nice. Even though it is only my host sister, Berfin and host mother, Sevim and their father, Memet is away working; they have many good friends and a lot of relatives. We are always doing something together. Here during the summer it looks like they would hang out with their friends and go to their houses, mostly in the same apartment complex, till late at night. It is a lot of fun…but because of some of the effects of jetlag I was getting very tired earlier. My first week felt very very long … I felt like I have already been here for a whole year! I was introduced to many of their other friends, I ate many different types of food, I got to go on a ferryboat with Berfin, I got to see a very nice part of Istanbul on the European side (I can’t remember the name), but it was very nice! I had a traditional meal with Berfin’s father’s Grandparents, Cousins, Uncles and Aunts.

They had set the bowls of food out on the carpet and people would sit on the floor or on the couch and eat. Their grandparents were Muslim and they were celebrating the Ramadan, which came in August. They would wait for the Hoca to read and then they would eat. The Hoca would read/sing from the top of the mosque towers, there is a whole chorus of them singing together. They would broadcast it on the TV and radio. I don’t know what they’re saying, but it sounds very pleasant.

I was not feeling well that day, me and Berfin took a bus and then the ferryboat, met up with a friend and then went on a bus again to the grandparents’ home. They tended to me right away. They gave me a mix of yogurt and tea leaves, they said that it did not taste good but it would help. It wasn’t that bad…It was pretty good. I liked it, and it made my stomach feel a lot better. 😀

I had gone to visit my new school and got my new uniform. It is really nice; it is a plaid green skirt and a white collar shirt, black socks and black shoes, and a blue sweater. It looks very professional …it makes me feel smart. On Monday 7th I will be starting school, and I am very nervous!

So much has happened in just one and a half weeks. I am excited and can’t wait to experience what will come up next!

Yes it is true, like people say, your emotions become like a rollercoaster. One minute you are filled with joy and the next with sorrow. Let those emotions come, because once the rollercoaster is done you always get off with a smile. I wish everyone a good year and the best of luck!

God Speed!

November 24th Journal

Istanbul never ceases to amaze me. Every day there is something new that I learn, new places to see that I have not seen yet, and so many different people. It is a bit overwhelming to know that you’re in a country of 79 million people and living in a city of 7 million people. For me it has been hard living in such a huge city, I am used to being in a smaller town. Florida itself is big for me, but Istanbul changes your perspectives on what big cities are really like. Though Istanbul is not all metropolitan; as you drive along the city’s busy highways you may see on one side tall apartment complexes all cluttered together encircled by roads, shops and business industries and mosques wedged snuggly between all the hodgepodges. Then on the other you may see small grass hills enveloped with beautiful green trees slightly blowing in the cool autumn breeze and it’s like it was all in a world of its own. It’s quite an opposite depiction of a big city.

The leaves have begun to change their color from green to a beautiful orange and dark red. The weather has gotten colder and it has become very rainy. It has also become very foggy, I can look out my window and many times the fog would be so thick that you couldn’t see the building next to you. I have begun to bundle up every time I go out.

There is a holiday coming up in a few days called the Kurban Bayrami. During this holiday, they set up places in empty lots were they sell animals such as sheep, goats and cows. There is a spot set up just outside our apartment complex. I haven’t been in there yet, but I hope to go see it soon. People walk through this small like animal bazaars and buy their animal. Later when it’s Bayrami they say that they sacrifice the animal and give the meat to the family that bought it. This is known as the Feast of Fasting. I can’t what so see what my family will do on this holiday.

My Host Family:

They are wonderful, kind and they have been very patient with me. I love them and I’m grateful to have them as my host family. My host sister is great, though she is a very social person and I’m quite the opposite. She likes to text to her friends a lot (I am sad to say that it has kind of rubbed off on me) and she is very studious. Most of her friends have become my friends too. I have slowly become more sociable, though I still feel a bit uneasy being around groups of people. My relationship with my family is pretty good. But sometimes I feel like I am pushed to have to do things I sometimes don’t want to do. I have become exhausted, tired, and never feeling like I can completely relax. But I can say that I am not bored; instead there is always something going on and things to do.

My School:

My school… It’s nice, big and the students are pretty friendly. The schools here in Turkey are very focused on their students and they push them, maybe a little too much, to get good grades for the University. To get in to the University is very competitive so the students study, study and study. But for me; I study but it’s doesn’t seem to be enough. I was put into an IB program for the eleventh grade and it was tough. The classes were all in English, but it felt like it was all in Turkish because I couldn’t understand any of the work they would do. I was lost. I also was very far behind and it would probably take me a whole year to catch up or even more and I really need the credit. So, I went back to the ninth grade. Yes the ninth grade. I started on the 16th of this month and it has gone alright so far. I have missed two whole months or so of what they have done already, so I’m going to have to catch up pretty fast. Well, in all, school has been stressful but I’m having fun.

The Exchange Students:

In total we are about 23 exchange students from Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and the majority are from Brazil, but all here in this huge city of Istanbul. As odd as our group may be, we are like a big family, we look out for each other, and we protect, care and help each other through the tough times. We have been having a great time these past few months. It is nice to have the diversity in culture in our group of exchange students, because we learn a little bit of their countries as well as the host country we’re in. There are two exchange students from Mexico. It has been so nice to have someone to speak Spanish to who is going through the same experience as I’m going through.  It has been great.

Well on Sunday 22nd of this month we had our Thanksgiving dinner.  All our host families were invited and each had to prepare a meal or a dessert from our countries. Since there was four or five Americans here, they would be making a traditional American meal. So I decided to make something from Bolivia, called FLAN CASERA! I could say that it brought back old childhood memories. It was delicious and it seemed that people liked it too. All the food that exchange students brought went very fast.  Our families got to experience a multi-cultural Thanksgiving dinner, with a turkey, in Turkey. I think they enjoyed it.

Moments With my Mom:

On the November 10th, my mom arrived here in Istanbul. I couldn’t wait to see her! She had come because of her job, not only to Turkey, but it was her last stop. I know that the rules say that parents are not allowed to come till later on in the program. Though she couldn’t really come and not be with me. This was her only chance to be able to come, so we made the best of it. But while she was here I was able to take her on a few mini tours of the places I know. Some of my friends from Rotary and me got to show her the main areas of Istanbul such as Taksim, Kadikoy, Eminunu, and Besiktas. There is so many but she got to see a few of them. I got to take her to the Grand Bazaar, being both of our first time there, we had a great time. It’s true about what they say about the Bazaar, you need excellent bargaining skills, because they are very persuasive. She also got to experience eating the way Turkish people eat, a lot of food! It’s something your body eventually gets used to, but for the short time she was here, I think it was too much food. Her stay hasn’t made me have a strong desire to want to go back home. She came only for 6 days, but those 6 days had really helped me through a lot and I really appreciated her being here.

January 6 Journal

I could say that this past month I have become very homesick and I have sunk into a solemn mood. My host family has noticed as well as my teachers at school and they’re a little worried. But things are starting to look up as the New Year approaches.

This month I have been going out a lot with friends and family and many times with other Rotarians. We would get together and walk around in Kadikoy or go looking for a new place to explore. My host mom is starting to become more flexible with me letting me stay out a little later than 6 or 7pm. Before, coming home at that time was difficult. Most of the time, to get to any of the places that we get together and meet; it would take about a half an hour to an hour to get to by bus from my home. Then you would stay for 3 to 4 hours and you then you had to leave an hour early to get home on time. Many times there can be so much traffic that you would get home 1½ hours later. Buses can be rally inconvenient at times. Taxies are too expensive here in Turkey, though there are some “fake” taxies as the call them. You cannot spot them anywhere because they look like normal cars. You can only call them and their numbers are passed along through people and they’re not advertised. Those taxies are cheaper.

But I love my host family and I wouldn’t trade them for anyone else. I get along really well with my host mother, but I think things are a little tense with me and my host sister. I am not sure what could be causing this tension but I hope things get better between us. I had spent my first Christmas with them and it’s my first Christmas completely away from my family that I grew up with. For Christmas Eve I left half way through school and went with Chiara (she is the only other exchange students in my school besides me) but we went to her house to bake some Christmas cookies. We also made a cake that didn’t turn out looking good but it tasted good. We scooped out the cake and stuffed it in a plastic container and covered the top with some icing, covering the crumbled cake. That was our Christmas cake. We had fun and laughed while doing it.

After the baking and decorating I saved some cookies for my host family and Chiara kept the cookies at her host mother’s café. Later that day we left to go to a church, a Catholic Orthodox church, with high ceilings all covered in paintings of angels and saints. There was a place made up for the manger at one end of the church, it was lit up with candles. The service was all in Italian, but during the end of the service they went over to the manger and sung Christmas songs in Spanish, Italian, English, German, Turkish and French. When they sung in Spanish I couldn’t help but smile. We received some gift of a pastry after church. It was given to the church by the mayor of the state. He opened the church service in Turkish and left right after his small speech. But after the service we hung around in the church and talked to people. I got to talk to the priest and he told me he was from Mexico and he had lived in Turkey for 6 years. He was there to work with the Muslims and with the mayor. But once the church lights turned off and we were asked to leave we went home. Chiara stayed at my house for the night because it was 12:00am when we got home. She left early in the morning on the Christmas day.

Christmas Day, I spent it showing one of the other exchange students a sight called the Maidens Tower in Uskudar. It’s a lighthouse-like building in a small island a little ways out into the sea. We walked around and we left to go home. I got home at around 7pm and I got to talk to my family back home!!!! It was not for long because I had to go have dinner with my host family. They had cooked a big dinner for us, I’m not sure if it was for Christmas or not but I pretended it was. That was pretty much my Christmas. But it’s one that I will never forget.

New Years was the time I really missed home. I got to celebrate with my host family and we went over to some friend’s house and waited for the countdown playing bingo during the meantime. Then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, woohooo!! Happy New Year!!!…. we hugged and kissed each other on the cheeks. At that time I felt so alone, I began to miss my family back home. I wanted to be with them. But a little bit later we cut a cake and celebrated. In some places they had fireworks, I wanted to go but my host mother and father said it would be too dangerous because there would be a lot of people.

I’m taking things slow but I’m so stressed, life as a Turkish student is not fun. But as a Rotary Exchange student it is. Though it’s very busy and there is always a lot to do and learn, we have fun.

Sierra’s Bio

Zdravo! That is Hello in the language of the country I will be going to next year. The beautiful country of, drum roll please, Croatia.

Well people call me funny, weird, loud, nice, pretty, crazy, smart, and everything in between. I like to take their compliments and pick what I like and use them to my advantage. I live my life for what I can. I don’t try to be everything all at once. I like to take things slowly and look at all angles. Scoping out and picking the nice route. I wear what I like and modify what I don’t. My mind is always working on some new idea that I think should be made by someone else. I don’t really know how I am or how I act; I just know that I am Sierra. Born and raised in St. Augustine, with a sister, a mom and dad, and a dog. Later added to the addition were the family cats and a fish. Though my cat seems to be the princess I make sure to keep her off her pedestal as best I can. I love to laugh and I don’t mind being laughed at. Embarrassment is only embarrassing to those who let it get to them. My music is never far at hand. Large vocabulary words are always something fun to splash into a conversation to brighten it up. Color is always important to me. Books attract me as well as shiny toys. I do not think I have grown up too fast or too slow. I love the way my family and I are and I love the love they give me.

I am a sophomore at St. Augustine High School; I love to sing in my school chorus with all of my friends in the St. Johns Center for the Arts.

My mom and dad couldn’t be more different but they get along so well. I take after both of them equally I think. Singing and running around and acting like a happy kid I get from my mom. Being able to stay calm and not get worked up over a small situation and enjoying cooking I get from my dad. But I know from both sides I get a nice big helping of creativity. My grandpa has bestowed upon me in my genes the best hair color I have ever heard of, strawberry blonde. Though I like to change my hair color more than I like to see it natural doesn’t mean that I do not appreciate such a lovely color to have growing out of my scalp. I also know that it doesn’t grey easily so I have a good thing to look forward to in future years. My sister and I get a long like old friends. We share our friends and our stuff. We also share the hilarious moments of complete boredom when silliness takes over and we explode in laughter for no reason.

I think my life is very fortunate compared to many around me and every year I thank whomever I can for that. My family and I have traveled to many a distant land to see the sights and the relatives, and the not so relatives. Long car rides have become more than bearable and I think that is where my patience has been acquired form. Camping and bugs do not bother me, nor does the darkness or the fire wood smell. Good conversation and good people are how I’ve been raised. Spontaneous experiences have the best stories to tell people. If I could remember every funny story I’ve experienced, I am sure I could write many books, they just wouldn’t make as much sense or mean as much as they do to me.

Honesty is something I like to use as much as possible. Lairs don’t make friends and I have more friends than I know. Being nice also helps with the honesty, I believe. I do judge books by their covers but I do not judge people on how they dress or appear on the outside. Many people have surprised me on how they are as to how they look.

I have played the piano for nine years now or around there. I started when I was about seven. My piano teacher is the nicest woman I have ever met. She teaches my mom and me. Though piano sometimes looses its pizzazz I still love the sound of a well played piano. Classical piano music always has a place in my heart.

The love of arts and crafts of the younger years has transformed into a love of Photoshop. I think I have run up quite a large bill of photo paper on my parents tab but they love what I make for them. My Girl Scouting days have been going on since I was at the sweet age of four. My mom has made sure that my sister and I are always signed in for the next year. She is our leader so it does make it a little easier, and we all find her the best leader around.

My family is the second family for many of our friends and they always love to have kids coming in and out. There are rules of course but as long as you follow them they will love you like their own. Their rules are not hard and they love meeting new people as much as I do. The only way to make friends is to talk to different people.

Well that is my life as I see it so far, in a piece of a nutshell. I hope this experience will put more outlooks on my life. Though I know it will. There is no greater chance that I have seen than to be able to go away for a year in a foreign land. Being excited doesn’t even cover it. My mom and dad and everyone in between have all of my love for this. The Rotary group for showing the fine little presentation at my school also gets some claps from me. And I am excited to know that three of my friends will be experiencing the same thing as me in this great journey. The families that I will meet and the places I will go will never leave my mind.

 Sierra’s Journals

August 30 Journal

Well, it is my third day here officially and boy am I surprised. I am so in love with my host family. They already feel like my own. It’s crazy. They are so similar to my own home back in the states that it was very easy to just slip in comfortably. Now I don’t know if that is how they feel about me but that’s just my take on them.

I have just spent the day about an hour and a half away on the Hungarian border with their very close friends. We had a wonderful time. I loved it there. They grew and smashed their own grapes for wine that they make themselves and they have a big garden and a whole lot of things are home grown. Their home was filled with tables for all of the people who were there. And surprisingly enough they pretty much all spoke English. Good for me at least.

I’ve been eating so much I think I will explode sooner rather than later. And it isn’t like I want to eat it, darn if Renata isn’t a very persuasive woman. I’ve eaten things on my first night that I have never eaten at home because I didn’t like them. I’ve come to figure that it is because here everything is fresh. And I mean everything. The tomatoes which I really didn’t like are sweeter and crisper and I’ve had them more than once. And even cucumbers and vinegar! Now the vinegar I am still repulsed by but it was manageable on the salads.

What a strange time I think I am having. Not exactly what most would call strange but I think it is. There are times when it feels like home, then moments where I feel like a guest. I’ve had to refuse food which gets a little awkward but I really couldn’t eat another bite. I feel bad but I know it is for the better. My second day was much easier. Both my parents went to work and Luka slept till eleven or so and we chatted about school, then he made lunch and we ate, then they came home and we had dinner, and then I went to sleep. It was very not stressful or anything likes that.

I have gone around the town some. The first night I had to go to the police station to proclaim my residence in Zagreb with the Kušpilić family so then we took a short walk around the square. Man did I feel like the biggest outcast. I don’t know what it was but I felt as if I had a huge sign on my forehead proclaiming that “here I am, I am a big dumb American.” Now I don’t know if that is exactly what it said because from time to time the sign would change while it was up there on my forehead saying something like “you can tell I’m not from around here so no need to question it.” But I just put those thoughts behind me and kept walking around with Renata. Then, yesterday Vihor, which I found out directly translates into hurricane, coincidence or not, we walked all around town. I saw the fifteen story church and the historic theater and the college and the statues and the street history. It was very informative, unfortunately so much information that I couldn’t remember it all, but I have it in the back of my mind. I really love this city, it is just big enough to be huge to me but nothing too big that it swallows me up and I am scared to go outside.

The television has like three English channels which I am very happy for, seeing as how I have woken up at five thirty in the morning and at six forty and at nine for that last few days. Soon I hope to get out or this erratic sleep pattern, but as for right now I am stuck up with the morning birds. I’ve already made crepes for my host family; Renata taught me – it was so much fun. I really do love cooking and I think they liked the help.

I’m really scared to start school but also really excited which I guess would be the right idea. This flat we live in is so spacious. I was amazed when I walked in. I have like a big ole room, then a big ole living room and smallish kitchen, but hey that doesn’t matter. And it’s just a lot of nice things. And I am learning a lot about the Yugoslavia history from my host dad. He explains thing very well.

I think I have written all I can write for one night and I will be writing again soon.

November 16 Journal

So second journal, this seems to take a little longer than I thought. I have now acquired enough for a good long journal. I’ll try and keep them more up to date. So it is November. Halloween has come and gone. It has snowed for only a half hour but it was still really beautiful. I was so excited because it was my first time seeing the first of the snowfall. I was like OH MY GOD LOOK SNOW. Then I ran outside and stood for like ten minutes before I was like ok well I’m freezing going back inside. Since then it was kind of cold but this past week (16-11-09) it has been pretty warm. They say that it is warmer than it should be. And that last year it was colder than it should have been. Oh I have gotten lost. That was super exciting, but it only happened once so I feel better for finding my way home.

We have Croatian classes every Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is really nice because we all get to get together for the class. All of us except for Sarah and this one girl from Germany, Isabel. Sarah is like a billion miles a way in Đorđivec. I think that’s how you spell. But all of us are trying to bring her into town to spend the weekend with us so that she can be part of the group. Ljiljana is just as scary as Al and Daphne. Which is a relief because I know how to handle her scary-ness?

I’ve been to the circus and the zoo, also to the main lake Jarun and to a protest at the circus. Recently I went ice-skating with the exchange kids here and a few girls form one of their schools. It was really fun and I’m excited to go the outdoor rink when it gets colder.

I found out that I am a true Floridian because just the littlest bit of cold, I’m all bundled up and chattering my teeth off. The food here is AMAZING. Oh goodness everyday, I’m like, oh god no more, oh well maybe a little more. I feel like my host family and I are getting closer and it’s good to know that I have a family here and home. Soon, well in January, I will be changing host families. I’m kind of scared because my school and my home right now are very close. And this flat is very close to the center and everything. It seems like everyone else’s houses or homes are super far away from everything I need. But I’m all right with changing – it seems like a brand new adventure. My classes are so strange to me, logics and ethics, I have never heard of before. Also trigonometry and physics, so much fun. My classmates are the best cheaters I have ever seen. Seriously I will come home with such great tactics.

Coffee and I have become very good friends. Since it is what everyone has here I have learned to love it. It wasn’t so hard though. I’m sad about having to go home and know that there isn’t going to be a little coffee shop with just drinks around the corners. Blair and I have been thinking of the hunt we will have to do to find something similar to the places here. But we know it won’t happen. The leaves are falling off trees and when I’m walking around all I can think to me is «wow this is so pretty». I also think I have been asked what I think of Croatia about a hundred times at least. Of course it’s always the same answer and always a little awkward. Some of the biggest things I’m not used to is being questioned about everyday stuff. For example when I come home I have «how was your day, how was school, what did you learn, do you have homework, how is Blair, what classes did you have, did you have lunch, when did you wake up, are you hungry, are you sure you’re not hungry, you must be hungry so why don’t you eat something, what do you want to eat, etc. » It’s so strange the offering of food at like every moment. Of course it is very hard to refuse this everyday and of course I don’t but sometimes I have to. I just can’t eat another bite.

We are learning to work with me not being able to eat as much as they do. My host mom who is super tiny is able to eat like three plates full. I guess us Americans just don’t eat as much. But everything is super healthy which I love. I am in love with tomatoes which I hated back home. And even weird stuff I have never heard of before I try, just because I know I’ll probably like it in the end.

I love the atmosphere here in Zagreb; it is like a big little city. Everything is tall, like all of the buildings are shops on the bottom and then homes above for six stories on either side. I love it, I feel like since everything is within walking distance or tram distance that I can go where ever I want. But then it is small enough for me to not feel scared about getting lost because eventually if I walk far enough I’ll find somewhere where I know where I am. Also I have never felt unsafe walking around by myself. It’s just like walking around my town back home. Even more safe feeling than that.

A fun thing my host mom told me was that during winter, people go a little I guess you would say «stir crazy». With the sun not showing for a long time apparently people drink more and drive more so she told me to watch out walking around because depressed drunks shall be driving around. Whoopee. To which I replied, well without sun, people should get a little sad. Then I figured out «oh wait I’m from the Sunshine State» – wonder what this nice winter will do to me. But I haven’t really gotten sad except once.

This whole thing seems to me to be something to make kids love their parents more. I know when I go home I won’t stop calling my mom and dad «momma and poppa». I feel like I appreciate them more since I don’t get to be around them.

On All Saints day, which was the first of November, I went with my entire family to three cemeteries. First to Renata’s Fathers and Uncles. To place flowers and light candles. Then to Renata’s Brothers, then to Vihor’s parents. It was all very beautiful because there were so many people around these three cemeteries. There were flowers everywhere and candles being lit left and right. In fact at night there was a gigantic cross made out of candles on the ground and people just kept adding and adding more to the line. It felt like a bon fire. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people at a cemetery. I also learned that people here cherish their family alive or dead for much longer than we do back at home. When I was questioned as to how many times I’ve been to the cemetery all I could say was «oh about three times». I felt so bad because it was like I didn’t care about my family that died. But I know that I want to bring this little tradition back home with me because it does make a better bond. Walking around with beautiful graves all decked out in flowers and candles.

So many new customs and foods and styles and everything here in Croatia and it’s only just the beginning. I’m really excited and scared of this upcoming month. The big Christmas season. Along with my birthday and Thanksgiving. My two favorite holidays of they year. Hopefully it will start feeling a bit like Christmas soon; I’m ready to feel this frosty wonderland.

Dobra Verće to you all and Laku Noć

(Good evening and good night)

March 16 Journal

Well it has been a really, really, really long time I can see, so I guess I can just start where I left off. In November I celebrated my birthday.

After that in the beginning of December the exchange students all went to Salzburg Austria to see the exchange students there. They actually didn’t know that we were coming but we spent three days there it was a lot of fun. We met a lot of kids and hopefully we’ll get to seem most of them again on Euro tour which is coming up in May. They have so many more people than us but I hope we left a good impression on them.

Christmas went off nicely – we had a nice pork dinner and grandma came over for dinner. At twelve o’clock Vihor and I went to the church near our house to see Christmas mass. It was very crowded we then walked to the main Cathedral. We only stayed for a few minutes before going home. The next day on Christmas I woke up and opened my presents from my host family. I got a very nice hat and a book and a book light. We spent the day just lounging around the house.

On new years I went with another exchange student Blair and with our class to a town near Zagreb, Zaprićić. We were with them till the next day before going home; it was a lot of fun.

Before school started again I went with them skiing in Austria along with family friends and it was amazing. I learned how to correctly ski. We stayed only for three days but it was really beautiful. By the end I was able to go all the way down the mountain by myself. To get to the beginning of the slope we rode a lift a kilometer up the mountain and then the peak was another kilometer up. On my first day, I accidentally went on the wrong lift and ended up all the way up at the top. All I was thinking to myself was: do not ski off the mountain, go slow, don’t die. I made it out alive thankfully.

Once we got back I moved to my new host family, the Ivković’s. They have a son who is in Chicago right now and here they have a two and a half year old daughter. Also my host mom is pregnant. She is due this week in fact, so we are just sitting around waiting for her to have him. They are thinking of naming him Pavlo. Their daughters name is Lara; she and I play together every day. My host fathers name is Predrag and I still have the hardest time pronouncing it. My host mother, Viktorija, is so sweet. She and I sit and talk almost every day about each of your pasts and the weather and everything. I am very scared and excited for her to have a baby. I have actually never been around a toddler or a pregnant woman for so long before which is pretty amazing.

In school the classes are all alright. We’ve changed a few classes so now I am taking geography which is really hard but it’s manageable. We also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday. They had a huge tent with at least a hundred people. They had Authentic Irish dancers and music. A lot of drunken people dancing. It was scary but the dancers were amazing.

The weather is finally getting better so now everyone is able to go outside and run around. There is this really nice place called Jarun (Yaryun) which is at the end of the river and it has a lot of cafes and a pebble beach and when it gets warmer we can go swimming. Also there are a lot of playgrounds and a huge track around the whole lake part. Hopefully I can work on getting this extra weight off hah.

In a few weeks the exchange students are all going on a trip to Dubrovnik for four days. We are all really excited to finally see it because some of us haven’t seen the coast yet.

All of us, the exchange students, have a really good time when we go out together. Our classes are all going well and everyone seems to be really happy with their new host families. The year is just flying by and I don’t think anyone wants to leave. Definitely not me. I will write sooner next time.

Steven’s Bio

My name is Steven Robert Blaize Isicoff. I am a surfer, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer.

Since I can remember my one true love has been music. Music that moves me, that can make me see the world in a different way, that can show me the bottom of the ocean, and the tip of the highest mountains. For the past two years, I have been writing, recording, and producing my own music, which is the joy of my life. I’m a senior at St. Augustine High School, where I am in the Chamber, Show, and Madrigal Choirs, all of which are audition-only groups of highly talented singers from St. John’s County Center for the Arts at St. Augustine High School. I am also a member of Spanish Club, Interact, and Chorus Council.

I live with my mother, a teacher of anatomy, biology, and physiology at my school, my father, a doctor at an urgent care clinic, and my little brother Nicholas, who was adopted from Romania at 3. My family and I live within yards of the beach, so when mother nature allows, I like to spend my time on the beach or at my pool, tanning, surfing, swimming, or just messing around.

I have been singing since I was a very young child (my mom has a tape of me screeching out some song I was listening to on my CD player when I was 6), and thankfully since then I’ve improved. I use only my iMac, my synthesizer, and my voice to record my music, and I have a whole CD’s worth of original tracks, as well as covers of hit songs of today.

I also read voraciously. Dean Koontz is by far my favorite author, as much as I hate to admit it, because he writes trashy horror stories comparable to those trashy love novels. Nevertheless, I can’t get enough of it, and I’ve read every book he’s written to be found in my local Barnes & Noble. I have also enjoyed many other, random sporadic works, such as Memoirs of a Geisha, and Alice in Wonderland, not to mention the Harry Potter, Twilight, and Lemony Snicket series.

I’m so grateful for this radical opportunity to be completely immersed in a lifestyle completely alien to me, and I’m excited to experience a new culture.

Steven’s Journals

October 8 Journal

How do I begin to tell of this journey? I suppose I will do as the Mad Hatter suggests and “Start at the beginning, and when I reach the end… stop.” This is only appropriate because I feel as though I’ve fallen down the cultural rabbit hole. Saying goodbye to my American parents was much easier than expected (not that it wasn’t hard), as was the sixteen hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, with the help of my newfound friends from all over the states. After arrival and regular airport protocol I was picked up by my host family, who called my name as I exited baggage claim. We drove home to Shalu to arrive at an apartment building, the entire four stories of which are owned by the Tsai family.

I will now attempt to list all the members of my family. My host mother and father and their children, Alma (the oldest, recently returned from vacationing in Australia), Ann (a college student), Tammy (studies in Tainan city), and Angela (a student at the local high school and rebound from Brazil.) Next is my aunt and her daughters, Jasmine, Joanne, Celia, and Mei Mei. Then my host uncle William and his wife, as well as their two sons and a daughter. On top of all this is Grandma Tsai and the live-in maid from Korea.

And now for the weather. The heat is very similar to Florida, so nothing new there, but thankfully the nights have just begun to cool down. One definitely gets the “tropical island” feel walking down the streets of Shalu. Beautiful flowers and vines growing everywhere on the sidewalks, a strong wind blowing through the trees walking 15 minutes to school in the mornings, and bats and butterflies to keep me company as I walk home at night. Shalu is basically… Hastings to Taichung’s Saint Augustine to Taipei’s Jacksonville if that makes any sense. Taichung is definitely larger than Saint Augustine, but in comparison to Taipei… it’s nothing.

Five days a week I go to Shalu Gao Gong (an industrial vocational school) wearing my uniform of black, blue, and grey, with my yellow Kool Aid sneaks to top it all off, to enjoy time with my new friends, one on one Chinese lessons with the school’s Chinese teacher, helping teach English class, and 4 hours of Kung Fu on average everyday (my favorite part). Who would have guessed that I of all people would fall in love with running laps every morning, Kung Fu most of the day in school, lifting weights after school, and swimming laps at the pool after dinner with my host sister? Not I.

Lunch is eaten in the classrooms out of huge pots containing rice and other dishes served as well as a daily soup. I kid you not – I live in the biggest Chinese restaurant I could have ever imagined and I LOVE it. The school requisitions to each student a bowl, a spoon, and a set of chopsticks to use and wash every day. Three days out of the week though, I bike to McDonald’s or a local shop to buy lunch with the boys from my kung fu class.

Nothing yet on this exchange trip has felt better than laughing and joking in a new language (I CAN LAUGH AND JOKE IN CHINESE) while riding a bicycle through the streets with my friends from Kung Fu. After lunch is… NAPTIME. Yes it happens here, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Whether it’s head-on-a-desk style with my classmates, or on awesome mats in Kung Fu, my thirty minute mid-day nap is BEAUTIFUL. This is required by the students and the teachers alike not only due to the heat, but also because of a ten hour school day.

Did I mention that central air is nonexistent everywhere except government buildings, from what I’ve seen? This took some getting used to, but once I realized that when I’m sweating, everyone else is too, I made my peace. After school I come home and eat delicious meals consisting of (you guessed it) rice, curry, chicken, squid, spinach, and other unknown, unnamed delicacies. After dinner I go to the pool where EVERYONE wears speedos (I’M NO LONGER ALONE!) to swim my laps, chill in the sauna or hot tub, or use the high powered jets to massage my back and shoulders after a hard day of Kung Fu.

On the weekends I meet my friends from school in Taichung city to go to one of four… or maybe five fifteen story shopping malls, eat at fantastic roadside restaurants, and find unbelievable bargains on mind-blowing fashion in the sprawling night markets, or of course I spend time with my fellow inbounds at Rotary meetings where we sing (every meeting), dance (every… single meeting), and have the best times. Considering these meetings are on Friday nights, I’m glad they’re so much fun.

December 22 Journal

Things have settled into a pretty decent rhythm since my first journal. I get up, eat breakfast, bike to school (I got a bike!), work out before class, exhaust myself with Kung Fu, delicious lunches, naptime, more Kung Fu, etc. A recent discovery is that the weather in the central portion of Taiwan seems to be literally exactly like that of Saint Augustine, Florida. I watched as the temperature dropped around the same time of year, to the same general temperature, and in the same way I hated it in Florida, it’s still unpleasant despite my new surroundings. I wasn’t prepared for the cold (only one jacket, so hard to match with everything!), so of course, shopping ensues. Ah god shopping in Taiwan. I could go on for days. The night markets, a hustle and bustle of people buying, selling, hocking, mocking, wearing, and living fashion. Street vendors market their wares directly outside the stores of high end retailers, and it’s often so hard to decide between a name brand one knows and loves so well and an obscure but unquestionably stylish garment off a table right down the street. Then there’s the 15+ story department stores with everything from Aveda Salons, to Luis Vuitton, from the iStore, to a huge movie theater. They even have a CHILI’S! Highlight of my day. Often times I’ll go to a mall with no idea what it is I’m looking for, but simply by watching the shoppers around me and becoming positively green with envy, I know exactly what I want. The style over here is like the stuff of legend in Saint Augustine. And the HAIR. I’ve watched my Floridian friend strive for hours to achieve what some of these people “wake and shake” to. It’s… upsetting to say the least. Jealousy abounds.

I have also recently been putting my talents to work singing with the school rock-cover band. We’re performing It’s My Life and Every Day by Bon Jovi very soon, and we practice almost every day. Though it can’t compare to the daily 45 minutes of Chamber Singers I experienced at Saint Augustine High School, getting in my daily regimen of singing does my soul good. I find myself singing walking to and from class, in class, during lunch, and almost every hour of the day, never more so than now my kind and wondrous mother has been gracious enough to mail me the deluxe edition of Lady Gaga’s new cd, The Fame Monster. My classmates seem to be very much enamored with her, as am I, considering all the new found Gaga ringtones I’m hearing in class.

Speaking of Gaga, for the past week, I’ve been working on translating my absolute favorite song of hers, Paparazzi, into Chinese. After I had the entire song completely translated, my Chinese teacher and I went through it to check for… well whether it made sense or not, and we actually ended up keeping a surprisingly large amount of my original translation, which I could not be happier about. But I didn’t RANDOMLY take it upon myself to grace the people of the Chinese speaking world with understanding the beauty and magic of Lady Gaga’s writing style, I had purpose. Two weeks ago I received an email informing me that there was to be an Inbound Chinese Free Talking at the District Christmas Party in which all inbounds were expected to give a 3-5 minute presentation using only Chinese. Some chose to sing traditional Chinese songs, still others gave speeches or performed skits or dances. I chose to perform a piano arrangement I had written by ear and sing Gou Zai Duei or Paparazzi for the unsuspecting crowd. I was well received, and everyone seemed not only to understand what I was singing, but also to ENJOY it, which was a huge plus.

After the performances, dinner, a short rest, and the dance competition began. I may not have been acutely aware of a dance competition occurring, but if there is music, I will surely be dancing. I gave the DJ The Fame Monster, and away we rolled. For three straight hours we danced to my CD, other inbounds iPods, and a live band playing a few slow songs on occasion, breaking only to announce that one of the largest earthquakes to date had hit Taiwan. (“We caused an earthquake!? Sweet! Turn the music up!!”) We did partner dances, line dances, lap dances, most kinds of dances imaginable, and at the end of it all, my long time dancing partner hailing from Brazil and I were crowned King and Queen of the dance competition, given devil horns instead of crowns, and huge bouquets. We had a final dance to So Happy I Could Die, which you should really look up, as it basically explains how I feel about all these wonderful people. After the dance, we exchanged presents and went on our way. By far the most fun I’ve had yet.

Because he was so impressed by my performance (only bragging a little), the District Governor has slated me to perform Paparazzi, and anything else I can cook up between now and a meeting of all the districts in Taiwan, in January. That means a select few exchange students including myself will be performing for every inbound, every outbound, and every Rotary member in all of Taiwan. I could not be happier about this development.

All exchange students from Taichung County should be going to Taipei for New Years, though I’m still not exactly clear WHO’S New Years we’re talking about, as I do know we’re going to Sun Moon Lake in Nantou this weekend for a little outing. Who knows, who cares, I’m with my friends and people who love and care about me.

This exchange has made nothing more clear to me than this: It doesn’t matter where you go on this Earth, all that matters is that you’re surrounded by people who love and care about you.

February 15 Journal

Life has been pretty intense since my last journal. I’m in a family I’m in love with and it’s winter break for Chinese New Year which was three days ago, so the parties and family events have been continuous.

On top of THAT, after hearing my translation of Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi into Chinese, the Rotary has collectively decided to make me leader of literally every group, every performance, and… everything until I leave. I have been charged with putting together a performance that must involve all 26 inbound students in my district, teaching them the song (in Chinese, of course), and choreographing a dance for everyone to do for an audience of over 300 Rotary members. All is going very well, and everyone is really working hard.

My Brazilian friend and I have also been doing performances at our family’s company’s New Year’s parties and just about every Rotary event. He plays guitar, and I play piano and sing. Everyone really seems to like it, and it feels amazing to be on stage. Though we only know a few songs between the two of us, we’re always very well received.

The Chinese New Year left me with MUCH more money than before, and considering I still have a few more days worth of family visits to conduct, as well as a trip to Taipei, the money shows no sign of stopping. While this is entirely enjoyable, being a member of a family whose parents are as fashion conscious as I like to believe myself to be is absolutely fantastic. My host brothers listen to the same music as me, and every day I am ASTOUNDED by my host mother’s outfits. Oh also, they’re the most kind, caring, and loving people I’ve yet to meet in this country. I’ve yet to feel as wanted as I do now, with this family.

To me, this also shows that the host family really makes the exchange. My past few families gave me very good perspective about the aspects of both American and Taiwanese culture I do and do not like, and this family encompasses all of them, and because we love each other so much, I accept things I find odd or frustrating, and they try to ignore me when I’m just a bit too outrageous for them, though it’s rare as they seem to be well aware of American idiosyncrasies.

Yao’s Bio

Hello, my name is Yao. As the name suggests, I’m Chinese. As of right now I attend a small school in St. Petersburg, Florida as a senior who is about to graduate.

I lived in China for the first twelve years of my life and moved to New York where I attended middle school for half a year and then moved down to Florida, and have been here for the last five years. My mom is the only relative I have within a radius of two thousand miles, with the closest relative being my uncle in San Diego, California. The other members of my family are still in China, where I have only visited once during my five years in the US.

I’m more or less your stereotypical Asian kid who’s good at math, but I do try to extend my hobbies into other areas. I’m a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is great as a stress reliever and self defense technique. I also play the saxophone, even though I have not been in band for the last two years due to an overflowing amount of classes I had to take. With all that said, there is nothing I enjoy more than learning. There’s just nothing that can beat the feeling of making yourself a better person.

My destination has been determined to be Germany. I think it’ll be a great mixture between fun and challenge. German would be a great addition to my knowledge of languages. Because I plan to eventually learn either Korean or Japanese, German would provide a balance between east and west. It will be a very challenging language to learn though, considering that Chinese is rather stiff and English lacks the rolling “r” that is so important is so many languages.

I look forward to what Germany has to offer and give them what I can in return.

Yao’s Journals

October 6 Journal

This is my third week in Heidelberg, Germany. And I figured it’s about time for a journal…

First let’s get to the beginning of this journey, when I was accepted into the program. While for most others, the next six or so months were full of excitement and preparation, mine was more or less dominated by the constant struggle with the visa system. The “emotional” roller coaster started much earlier for me because up until about early September, there were three or four times when the chance to go went from hopeful to slim, then to almost non-existent. And just as I thought it was over, new information would arise to give hope, only to have it demolished sometime later to begin the cycle again. Even when I was in the Amsterdam airport I was held by Customs until about 20 minutes before my flight to Frankfurt.

But none of that matters now, as I am, at this moment, in my room where I will wake up to the gorgeous Neckar and the mountains everyday for the next six months. Call it the “honeymoon” period if you want, but I am feeling absolutely great and am having no doubt about how great this year is going to be.

My host family consists of a father, a mother, two sisters, a brother, and another exchange student from Brazil. Everybody is nice and very helpful. The house is beautiful and I live on the top floor along with the Brazilian student and the older sister, who is extremely helpful in my German progress.

School…is a little bit more uniform than what I am used to. There are noticeably fewer “categories” of people, but at least it’s easier to fit in to most of them. The only bad thing is that EVERYBODY speaks English. I can, in all practicality, live here for a year just fine without learning German, this is giving me much less practice than I would like as everybody loves to practice their English with me. However they also help me with my German whenever I have questions. Classes aren’t easy to follow, most of the times it’s downright impossible as of right now. But there are a few classes I can easily follow, like Math and Physics. Surprisingly I’m following French class just better than most of my other classes, hopefully I’ll pick up a little of that too eventually.

As for the food, I’m really starting to think I have the potential to be really fat, because I have been eating so much here and everything is so good! The only thing that took a little to get used to is the switch in roles between lunch and dinner. Here lunch is the main meal, and usually there is no warm food for dinner. For someone like me who is used to eating a big meal for dinner, 2 slices of bread and butter doesn’t exactly satisfy. But that is really just a small complaint as I am absolutely loving the food here.

Before I end this journal, I would also like to mention how great the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (Frankfurt Auto Show) was. The tons and tons of people never took away how beautiful these machines are. Thank you to everything who worked on them! My favorite of that day was, surprisingly, the Lexus IS F, and not the Audi A4 (though the A4 definitely did not disappoint) as I expected. I absolutely LOVED the cockpit, and only got out of it because I felt bad for the long line of people outside.

Anyways, I would really like to thank EVERYBODY who has supported me up till this point. It has been hard, but I got through it with the help of all of you. Thank you.

November 22 Journal

Three months in Germany. In this journal, I really would like to focus on two things. The finances while overseas, and one of the larger goals of Rotary Youth Exchange: “integrating into the culture”.

First, please allow me start off with the money issues. People are NOT lying when they say “things are expensive in Europe”, if you have not yet been here, be prepared. Also, if you plan to be on the program and a Rotex tells you “you will spend a LOT more money than you are given,” unfortunately, that turns out to be true most of the time also. To me there are three components of my spendings here. The big trips that are planned, the little (only in comparison) necessities that are also planned, and the evil hole in your pocket that just LEAKS money.

Here in 1860 of Germany, there are three main planned trips. One to Berlin for 280 Euros, one ski tour to northern Italy for 380 Euros, and an Europe tour as a grand finale for 1300 Euros. That totals to a staggering 1960 Euros. According to the current exchange rates, this yields to about 3000 dollars, or in other words, bad time to be on exchange with US dollars in a financial sense. The main method of paying for these, as I have observed here, is to ask your host club. The Rotary club members of Germany are, for the most part, very resourceful people. Out of the fellow exchange students in my district, I know a few who are getting the Eurotour completely sponsored, and many who are getting large portions of it waived off. HOWEVER, this is never a guarantee, once in a while there is somebody who, out of principle, gets nothing besides his “taschengeld” (I actually don’t know the word in English, but it’s the money you are supposed to receive every month). Fortunately, I happen to have a EXTREMELY nice family who made it possible for me to enjoy skiing, Madrid, Vienna, and Florence, among many other places. But please know that if you’re like me and will not receive much support from home, the host club is not the last resource. Ask for things you can do, babysitting, walking the dogs, whatever it is that can help, and many times it works.

Now the big chunks are out of the way, let’s get to the “small” things. How wrong of me to think of them as “small”. As I have discovered here, if you are not watching your spendings closely, you will VERY easily end up spending more than you could imagine. My biggest spending related to the Berlin tour was NOT the 280 Euros fee, it was the 300 Euros I brought with me that did not come back to Heidelberg. Granted that it did contain some legitimate purchases relating to the weather differences, 300 Euros in 5 days is simply unacceptable. This was easily solved by keeping a record of things I buy, and I hope it could serve as a warning to the new outbounds. As for the necessities, THE MORE YOU BRING, THE LESS YOU HAVE TO SPEND. I’m not saying there should be four oversized luggages containing everything you will ever need in the year, but having to spend 30 euros for a mic when you can bring one over for free is just…stupid.

On to the next subject. What constitute as “integrating into the culture”? Must one adapt to all there is a culture has to offer? In a society that still holds to their hearts the traditional view of women are supposed to stay home and raise children, should a female student from the US accept her identity in the society? This would eventually bring on the topic of conformity, which I can talk about for hours, but will refrain to do so. Now for me, I have a more or less established position in dealing with differences. But it seems for a few it would take a little bit more time to figure out as not every country has teenagers that lead student lives as similar to the US as Germany does. The situation is even worsened when sometimes the family doesn’t understand that coming home early from a party because of a promise does not mean the student isn’t fitting in. Being a social butterfly is definitely not a requirement to understanding a country, not to mention that many natives in the said foreign country live just fine without going out everyday. I’m going a bit off tangent, but the point is that I do not believe a person has to change to fit into the culture, change into the direction you believe is good for you, and use the culture as a helping hand in discovering that direction.

And with that I close this journal. Until next time.

February 21 Journal

It’s mid-February, and I believe it is time (it means well past) for another journal…I will do my best to cover mostly everything that has happened.

And a LOT has happened. First let’s get to the travels. There’s one advantage in living in Germany: some of the most famous and most visited cities are within 50 dollars in train. Let’s see…let’s make a list…

Paris: The city was, for me, everything it was hyped up to be and more. Unfortunately my host family and I stayed for only one weekend, which was definitely not enough for the gorgeous city of 2 million. But we did hit up many of the major attractions. It’s the city that taught me certain things cannot be done justice through photos. The magnificent Notre Dame de Paris, the grandiose Champs-Élysées, or the famously aggressive French driving (it is everything you have heard of and then some, at least in Paris) simply cannot be captured by a piece of paper or any other media, for that matter.

Berlin: Unlike Paris, my visit to Berlin was more focused on a somewhat recent part of history. The pieces of the Berliner Mauer that remained and the museums thereto remind us of what had happened only twenty years ago. The part of the city that left the most impression on me, however, was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Despite the more than depressing Museum underneath, there, in the midst of all the suffocating grey stones, was a sense of hope, a strip of light at the end of road. Though I definitely did not leave the place with a lighter heart, it sure did show me some things that weren’t elsewhere.

I also had two snowboard trips, one to northern Italy in a town called Südtirol with the rest of the exchange students in my district, and the other to Bellwald in Switzerland with my host family. I have always said that the mountains are more beautiful than the seas, and I think that even though it’s all opinion, the point might be made better from hotels during those trips. The moonlight gently gleaming on the side of the snow-covered mountains might not be a rare sight to the locals, but for me it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever laid eyes upon. And I’m somewhat proud to say that after a few bruises and a few days of not being able to sit in a comfortable position, I can snowboard quite well and was the only newbie leaving Italy knowing how to carve (even though I’m almost equally exclusive in the club of “falling so much he can’t sit” because trying to LEARN to carve was not exactly fun and cakes).

Back in Heidelberg, things have largely stayed the same. Except that I am moving to my new host family today. I have not yet met all of them, but I have heard good things from my roommate who has. This family has not been completely a smooth sail, but we have worked out our difficulties and ended up where everybody’s happy. My host father is an extremely educated and polite man who can be a bit stubborn at times but is mostly very nice. The host mother is somewhat hot tempered, sometimes skipping the talking-it-out procedure and goes straight into shout mode. The host brother and two sisters have been very nice to us, even though sometimes not so much to each other (the host brother has some SERIOUS growing up to do, as all 13 year old boys). My hardest challenge here, in Germany, has actually not been accepting the culture as it is not so much different from that of the US, but actually getting used to a “family”. For the past 6 years, I have lived with my mother. And it’s a very different situation when you are living with 6 other individuals. For example, I usually try not to disturb my mother when I go out or come back to the house, but here my host mother gave me a whole half hour of shouting because she didn’t know when I was in the house.

On the language, it’s been…well, good. I can still read 100 pages in English in the time I read 30 in German, and I do still need a dictionary to completely understand absolutely everything, but talking is a much easier job when you’re in the country. I can tell stories that come to mind without the help of a dictionary, or listen to my host sister talk about her ski trip in 32452 words per minute and still understand what she’s talking about. I’ve completely eliminated speaking English in a country where EVERYBODY speaks it for a while now, and it feels good. I’ve actually started learning French through German, which I forgot all about despite my two A’s in French I and II. It’s been all in all going ok with the language, it is not where I want it to be, which is where I don’t have to hold a dictionary when reading a book. But I’m getting there steadily, and I’m sure soon it will be completely fine.

And with dem pictures I will end this journal entry. Enjoy!