 |
Rotary District 6110 Youth Exchange |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  |
Taylor
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||
| YE Journal at Rotary Youth Website | |||
Students: To add a message to your travel blog, email the entry to vicki; she will put all entries online.
|
Why I Chose to Study Overseas for a Year |
Note: Most Recent Entries Appear At the Top
| Date/ Entry Title | Entry |
| 2/10/2008 9:11 AM | Switzerland. This country has many things to offer. The experiences are uncomparable. In the past two months I've done more snowboarding than I have done in my entire life. This being said I can lay claims to frontside and backside 180's, backside 360's, massive amounts of pow-pow skills, and a broken clavicule! The last one has no ties with my skill levels but instead to that of the nasty run I was doing. Yeah...moving on. School is going good. If we look at my grades from a couple weeks ago (before i bombed 4 tests) i would have some pretty respectable grades (something like 4+ out of 6). Its funny cause Im actually doing better than some of the kids in my class. I work hard but not too hard. I still have to have a lot of time thrown in there for friends and family. Speaking of families, I changed as of 4 weeks ago. They are great, but sometimes the host mom gets on my nerves. Other than that my host sister Fanny (17yrs) is the Swiss Champion in amateur gymnastics and went to a pro competition and beat half the professionals on the Swiss national team. My younger host sister Marina (14yrs) is also involved in gymnastics but still not as good as her sister. But they have fun together. Next weekend is the once a month Exchange weekend. This time its being held in Grindelwald home of the luge. But unfortunately because of my broken clavicule I get to watch instead. But itll still be FUN! And as far as Rotary meetings go, I occasionally attend the luncheons (because of conflicting school hours) and once a month I attend the nightly meetings where they visit some enterprise, company, or local business. Sometimes its followed by dinner and sometimes just an apperitive. They are fun I guess. For me they are interesting because I like business and it gives me a chance to take a look into some different types and styles of business. A couple weeks ago the new Australians got here. So this weekend coming up will be a good chance to get to know them. Not sure what else to say besides that Im having a great time! |
| Sat, October 6, 2007 5:23 am | This exchange marks a big chapter in my life.
Strange new things. Leaving old ones behind. I came into the
program pumped and ready to go. I never admitted it but a couple
months before leaving i started to get scared. Thats something new
for me. I always greet challenges with a smile on my face. But
this time it was different. This wasnt a challenge. This was
something totally different. This was a new life. I was leaving
everything I knew and loved behind. My family, my friends, my
school, my city, my life. I stepped on the plane and took my seat.
Once the plane departed there was no turning back. This was it. I
decided that I was going to make the best of it.
After too many hours of being on a plane I was finally dumped off in Frankfurt. Close to the worst 6 hours of my life. The lay over was long. In the last hour I was frantically searching for my gate. Lucky for me they didnt post it till 45 minutes before departure. When they did finally post it I had no clue where it was. I was destined for Geneva. So I look and look. There is no Geneva. I go up to an airport worker man and in broken french as for the right gate. He asks where I am going. I say Switzerland. He asks my final destination. I say Fribourg. OH NO FRIEBOURG!!! NON NON THATS IN GERMANY!!! I say...no...Fribourg is in Switzerland. So after many minutes of arguing we finally figure out whats what and he points me towards the Genf gate...WHAT IS GENF?!!? Im not even in my host country and I have already learned a valuable lesson. All the cities in the German and French parts of Europe have 2 names. The French Name and the German Name. So unless you know them both its gonna be a little tricky getting around. I finally arrived. It was only me and my host mom for 2 weeks because my brother and dad were on a mountaineering trip in India was about 20 other people. It was cool. She took me around Switzerland a little bit and showed me all the sites and we toured Fribourg one day. So it was decent. But until school started it was pretty null. School started and I was a little scared. Another first for me. Im used to just being able to walk in and immediately spot a crowd of friends. In America it was easier to not be afraid cause you have done it all before. But here it was all new and I could barely read my schedule. Luckily my first day was only a half day. The first hald I was in the hospital getting my cast taken off. So my first real day of school was okay. Its kinda a blur cause I couldnt understand a word of what was going on. It was easier than I expected though. The crutches I was using was a good ice breaker. I didnt know how to explain my injury so I just recalled all the things my host mom would tell other people and I just repeated that. I got along ok for the first week. Then the second week people started opening up. Now my best friend is Xavier L. We hang out everyday after school and on the weekends. I go out to lunch with my other friends and we go out on the weekends. And with Xavier A. and some others I go to hockey games on Saturdays and some Fridays. After being with kids all the time and going to some festivals my language has improved a lot. Now I am able to hold conversations with my friends. I can also help explain the math, chemistry and biology with some difficulty. I could really go on for pages and pages of my adventures and
thoughts and what not. But I think now I am just rambling. This
gets me thinking. For the first 3 weeks I kept a journal. Maybe I
should pick that back up! CIAO! |
|
|
|
|
