Victoria Herdegen -- Australia (Home Club: Delmar)

 February 29, 2016

Wow! It has been a fantastic month!! February marks my 7th month and I can't believe how fast it's gone.  I've reached a real comfortable stage in my exchange. I have made great friends at school and continue to make more every week. I am involved in many activities such as netball and basketball as well as activities that I do not normally do in America such as choir and drama. I continue to learn every day and I try hard to keep to the Aussie expression to just "have a go". 

I have learned so much about myself and I have learned so many good skills for life. I feel I have developed some self confidence and have also discovered that I am not an as organized person as I thought I was. I love all that I have been able to discover about myself and the qualities I think I have developed. I love all that I have learned about life and all that the Rotarians continue to teach me. 

I have moved to my third host family. They are wonderful people! They own a bookstore and love giving me good reading material. Unfortunately I am not very keen on reading. Nevertheless I told them that I would try my best to read as many books as I could for the time that I spend with them. I look forward to all the exciting adventures we have planned together. No little kids but they are sweet people.

School is just mint! I love my schedule and enjoy all the classes I have decided to take. They are all so interesting and I have fun going to them. Again I have been so accepted by my Aussie mates but I now feel completely apart of the group, my year level, and the school. People tell me all the time that they can't believe that I have only been here for 7 months because it feels like to them I have been here for forever. They have also been recently commenting on my accent or lack of my accent. My classmates reckon I am losing my American accent and am sounding more and more like an Aussie. I don't know if I will fully sound Aussie to my mates but I reckon to an average American I sound pretty Aussie.

One real exciting thing that just happened today, in fact, was every five years my school Gippsland Grammar takes a huge school photo with all the year levels from year 7 to year 12. This photo gets frames on hung on the walls of Gippsland Grammar. I am so happy, very very happy, to have been able to come on this fith year to be included in this school photo. I will be forever apart of and forever remembered by this Aussie school. 

This past week was our rotary district conference. It is tradition for all the exchange students, along with some Rotarians, to ride 600k to conference. I imagined us going from a point A to point B but instead we drove to Wangarreta, the town the conference was held in, and every day we would make a big loop and stay at the same caravan park every night. Supposedly we were supposed to bike ride 100k everyday. And we did the first day but then it got up to 40 degrees (110 degrees Fahrenheit). In this hot weather it became a health and safety issue to ride in the heat of the early arvo. Not only did we start our rides earlier in the morning but we also cut our rides short. We still about an average of 70k a day.  By the third day of riding your legs are so used to it that you don't even care anymore you just pedal.

Conference started on the Friday night and it was a great night. Saturday there were some really good speakers that I enjoyed listening to. Saturday night all the exchange students and I have such a blast at the dance that was held after din din. Sunday morning the exchange students and I have a great presentation to the Rotarians. We preformed a skit that we wrote ourselves and the Rotarians found it real funny. I also have a little talk/ speech on the amazing opportunity exchange is, how great it's been, and why every rotary club should host an exchange student. It all went very well. I have become so close with all wonderful 14 exchange students being hosted in this district. 

As I talked with one of the exchange students over this week we reflected on our exchanges and how we feel about them. As we talked about what we have loved and what we have struggled with we realized that we struggle with the same things and that we aren't alone in the way we feel. We realized that the 5 months we have left are not a count down or the down hill to exchange. They are 5 new months to refocus ourselves on our goals, to see what we could've done better in the last 7 months and now improve ourselves and make those changes to be better. We have 5 months to make exchange even better and seek even more opportunities and make our exchange a great success. 

Thank you so much!

Cheers, 

Torri 

Pic1 - All 15 of us exchange students in the green room before we went on stage to preform our presentation to the district.

Pic2- My ride to conference team in our bike riding gear :)

 

 

Adam Boese -- Brazil (Home Club: Schenectady)

February 27, 2016

My last host family has one daughter who returned on new years. I met her in the beginning of January and she is awesome. I get along with her and her family really well. Early in January my host family and I went to a Reggae concert in Rio which was awesome. Rio is a beautiful city. I also continued to spend a lot of time in the beaches. On the 28^th I had my birthday which was very nice. I celebrated down town with friends.

Maeve McKeeby -- Belgium (Home Club: Schenectady)

February 23, 201

The past month has been full of travels, and celebrations. During the end of January, exchange
students from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other Southern Hemisphere countries arrived in
Belgium. The exchange students here in Belgium have an “oldie-newie” system; the exchange students
who are roughly half way through there exchange help the ones who have just arrived and help them
get used to the trains, school, and a whole new culture. I have a newie in my school, from Australia so I
spent the end of January and beginning of February showing her around Belgium and helping her adjust
to Belgium weather and life.
 

The beginning of February was Carnaval here in Belgium. Having never celebrated Carnaval it
was exciting to experience a new holiday. The main day of Carnaval was Mardi Gras but there were
parties, and festivals all month. I attended the biggest Carnaval festival in Binche, Belgium during Mardi
Gras. Binche is a very small city in the French part of Belgium but during Carnaval people from all over
Belgium, and Europe traveled to Binche for the celebration. At Carnaval, lots of people dress up in
costumes and have parades. People create teams and all dress up as the same person and walk around
as a group with a personal drummer and sometimes even a band in tow. Carnaval was definitely a very
different, exciting celebration I am so glad I was able to attend.
 

Following Carnaval I had the opportunity to travel to Zurich, Switzerland, and Barcelona, Spain.
Zurich is an absolutely gorgeous city with beautiful architecture, and landscape. In Zurich I explored the
historic section, along with the newer section. Despite its small size, Zurich has all the big name designer
stores and is the banking capitol of the world. Zurich is situated on Lake Zurich, with the Alps on the
other side. It is a very picturesque city with beautiful architecture and scenery. Three days after I
returned from Switzerland, I boarded a bus with my classmates and headed to Barcelona, Spain.
Barcelona is another beautiful city with beautiful architecture, good food, the beach, mountains nearby,
and good shopping. I spent 4 days in Barcelona visiting the Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, the gothic
quarter of Barcelona, the beach, downtown Barcelona, and the nearby Cataluna mountains. Barcelona
was a really fun week and it was really nice to get to know my classmates better and enjoy the sun!
The last thing I celebrated this month was my 6 month mark. It’s truly hard to believe I have
been without my family in a (now not so) foreign country. It’s so strange to think everyone in my life
right now I’ve only known for half a year, and only have 4 short months left with them. Exchange truly is
another life in a year, and it’s certainly a life I don’t want to miss out on.

Maggie Driscoll -- Mexico (Home Club: Albany)

February 10, 2016

Hello everybody! Sorry I haven't written an entry yet but I am going to start now and this will be for the months of September to January. I am living in Navojoa, Sonora, Mexico which wasn't the first location I was placed. Originally, I was supposed to go to Ecuador, my first choice, but after some complications I ended up here in Mexico. I am happy to say that I am extremely grateful for the way things worked out because I have met some of the best people, gone to beautiful places and tried amazing food (lots of tacos). When I arrived in Mexico I was shocked by how little spanish I actually knew even after years of taking it in school. I became nervous and a little doubtful my first night but when I went downstairs in the morning to my new family I was instantly made comfortable and welcomed. I never felt (extremely) homesick after that. It was very hard to communicate at first with my host mom because she talks so fast but I learned more everyday and now I can understand and speak with the people here. There were 3 other exchange students here, now 2 because one already completed her 10 months, 2 girls from Brazil and one girl from Germany. A week after I arrived I traveled to Tijuana with my entire district, about 70 students, which was super fun because I was able to meet people from all over the world and see a little more of Mexico. 

So far, I have been in 2 schools and they are both extremely different. My first school was a large public school which I liked a lot. The people were very friendly with us and always asked us so many questions. I was used to going to public schools, I studied in Albany High, but this school was very disorganized and lacked good quality materials and technology. Despite this fact almost all the students showed a lot of ambition and tried hard during the classes to get high grades. After I switched to my current smaller private school I noticed many immediate differences. The students here were also very friendly towards us but during class they are much louder, surprising me. In this school they use more technology and the administration is stricter. 

My city is a very small city where everyone knows everyone and there is not much to do. I try to find activities during the day. I go to the gym with friends, to the movies or out to eat. I figure if I go to the gym I can eat as many tacos as I want. Some other places I have been (besides Tijuana) are San Carlos, Ciudad Obregon, Las Bocas, and Alamos. San Carlos is a very beautiful beach town. It is small but the views and the seafood are amazing. Las Bocas is another small beach town (much smaller than San Carlos) but it is fun to go for the day with the family because it is only 40 minutes away. Ciudad Obregon is a city 40 minutes away that is a bit bigger than my city so we go just for more things to do. Alamos is a very cool town about an hour away. It is a popular town because it is a "Magic Town" and it is super old with awesome traditional Mexican houses, churches and streets. 

I have also lived with 2 families so far and they are also very different. The first family was not a strict family but the downside was that the parents worked a lot so I didn't get to see them so much. I was not looking forward to moving in with my current family because I knew that the mother was very strict but now I love living here because I talk with my host parents a lot which is helping me learn more spanish and they make me feel more a part of the family. Also she isn't that strict, I realize now. I celebrated Christmas and New Years with my first family and friends. At this time I almost cried from missing my family but then I was able to enjoy the moment of being with these people who I consider my new family. I felt very grateful during the holiday's for my experience here and for meeting all these people who care so much about me even if we've only known each other a short period of time.