Carlo Gavatorta - Italian dinner!!!

Hey everybody! I'll dedicate this whole post to tell you about the Italian fundraiser dinner i just had last Sunday night.


First of all I organized this diner to raise money for the Rotary Bus Trip with all the exchange students that's going to be at the end of the year. It costs 1700 $ and since I waned to earn this money but I can't work I thought about doing this. I practiced some few Italian courses. Some Rotarian friends and my hostfamily really helped me out and it worked out really well. The menu was: Insalata con arancie e noci, pasta alla carbonara, agnello al forno con patate e verdure grigliate and tiramisù. It was a lot of work but it was really worth it! 12 hours in the kitchen are exhausting but also fun if with the right people! :-) Cooking for 45 people and making it a nice thing is not as easy as it would seem, anyway everyone liked it and enjoyed the dinner a lot.


It's such an amazing experience and I'm so happy I finally did it , after procrastinating for months. I was really tired after it but I felt so good and satisfied. I hope other exchange students will do it in the next years. It would be awesome!


I'll blog again soon and write other cool stuff happening in the amazing Steamboat Springs!


Carlo

Maggie Kriz: AHOJ JAR!!!

I can't believe how quickly time passes when you are on exchange. I just looked at the date and I realized that it is already March! I have been doing so many amazing things here, it is hard to choose a place to start!

In January I went to the Austrian Alps for a week with my school and it was really amazing. Before leaving Steamboat I had never realized how blessed I was to have a ski mountain literally five minutes away from my house.... lets just say that I will never take that for granted again. The alps were so beautiful and it was so nice to finally be on a snowboard again. We stayed in a cabin and there were about sixty kids and four adults supervising us. My favorite day was the last one, all the days before we woke up to beautiful bluebird mornings and when we hit the mountain we knew that we were going to find nice groomers but on the last day we woke up to about two feet of fresh powder. It was perfect because unlike the mountains of Colorado, the Alps don't have many trees on them so my friends and I could catch fresh tracks all day long. It was interesting though because the Slovaks didn't really know how to ski well in the powder, they are so used to groomed runs that they were amazed at how well I could maneuver myself through such deep snow. It really was a day that I will never forget.

The olympics were very interesting here in Slovakia. They are obsessed with ice hockey (ice hockey is to them as football is to the United States) so you can only imagine. Everyday people would be talking about the hockey games and I found myself staying up until 2:00 in the morning to watch the matches with my host brother and his friends. Really the only thing I could thing about though was.... "God, I hope they don't play America.... awkward..." Both luckily and sadly they never did.

I have found here in Slovakia a kind of routine, just like how you have routines in your home country and was amazed when I realized how comfortable I am in my host country. Everyday it seems that I have some plans after school with all of the new and amazing people that I have met here. It is interesting to me that although all teenagers come from different places and backgrounds we all like to do similar things and are drawn towards similar activities. I love to learn about the differences in this culture but I think that it humanizes us to learn that really we are all the same.... perhaps prejudices could be broken if only people traveled more and saw these similarities, rather than searching only for the differences.

It is finally beginning to warm up here and almost all of the snow has completely vanished. I was walking home last week from school and heard a bird singing, my initial reaction because it was February was "Poor thing must be lost," but it is those little things that remind you that you aren't in Colorado anymore. It was at that moment that I realized that I survived the Slovak winter... but more than just surviving I flourished. It was an amazing winter and I began to think about how I have built really close bonds to the people that I have met here and it was incredibly odd to me to realize that the weather is changing to how it was when I first arrived in Slovakia. It made me sad for a little to realize that I don't have much time left in this amazing country.

I am really looking forward to next month. My family is coming to visit me in April and we are going to to the beautiful city of Barcelona while they are here. It has been so long since I have actually been in the same room as them that I am so excited I could scream! My mother is perhaps the best cook in the entire world so I really can't wait to taste her delicious food once again! I will also be going to Greece and Italy with my Rotary district in May so I am very excited for the next few months of travel!

Carlo Gavatorta ...and time goes by so fast!!

It has been a while since I posted something in this blog and lots of things have happened. My exchange is going great and I'm loving Steamboat and all the people I've met who are part of my life here. Snowboarding is becoming one of my favorite things ever and I'm gonna keep doing it in Italy too.

Right after Christmas holidays I went to Agua Prieta, Mexico, with Interact and some rotarians to give gifts to the orphans down there. I had a great experience and we had a great time with the rotarians and interact kids of Agua Prieta. Giving the gifts to the orphans really made us feel very good and seeing all those smiles on their faces made us feel happy too. The thing that impressed me the most though was driving in the slums and giving gifts to the very poor people from the back of the truck. It was an amazing experience!

I also went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the ski trip with all the exchange students and we had a blast!! The ski mountain is great there and we had so much fun skiin together. I really think this Rotary District is great compared to others, we get to do so much stuff together and it really seems that they care a lot about us exchange students. I'm really glad to be in this District, especially in Steamboat!

So...life is going great, school is good and friends are awesome. I wouldn't ask more from this year at this point. Time is going by very fast and I already feel sad thinking about the end of all of this. Well, I also try not to think about it and live every minute intensely and do anything I have the opportunity to do.

Maggie Kriz: Veselé Vianoce a Štastný Nový Rok

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year! I have been having such an amazing time over the break and my time in Slovakia is going by so quickly I really can't believe it. On December 23rd I officially hit the 4 month mark and it is difficult for me to believe that I will be changing host families on the 16th of January. I really love my host family and it will be very difficult for me to leave them but at the same time I look forward to seeing the inner-workings of other Slovak families as well.

I have been so busy here in Slovakia! Recently I had a Rotary weekend where we went to Bratislava (Slovakia's Washington, DC) and Vienna, Austria. They are both such beautiful places and the decorations during this time of year were truly amazing. Both cities are well known for their Christmas markets and it was great to be able to experience that chaos first hand. The streets were packed with people, I though Steamboat was crowded but now I realize what it could be and thank god we don't live there during the holidays! I also really loved exploring the history of these cities, they are both filled with beautiful castles, churches, and palaces that were built far before the Mayflower even hit Plymouth Rock.

Christmas here was very interesting but also very different from the United States. In Colorado I am used to my entire family coming up to Steamboat and spending a lot of time together, it really is a big deal and my mom's favorite holiday so she goes all out (I always tell her that it looks like Santa threw up in our house because of all the decorations). In Slovakia, it is much more low key (they only celebrate with their immediate family) and they actually celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December rather than the 25th. Perhaps my favorite thing they do though happens about a week before Christmas. In front of ever supermarket in Slovakia there are huge tanks full of these fish that I would guess are about 5 to 7 pounds. Every family buys a fish and you take them home and they live in your bathtub for a week (when you want to take a shower you have to scoop him up into a bucket and then put him back afterward) and you feed him and most of the small children get really attached even giving the animal names and playing with it. But then, on the 24th, the men take it out of the tub and kill it and you eat fried fish and potato salad for dinner.... It is a very odd tradition but I guess no better way to show children the value of a life.

I am also really looking forward to the week of January 7th to January 14th because I will be going to the Austrian Alps with my school! I miss skiing and snowboarding so much, it is insane! I guess I took having a ski mountain in my backyard for granted because now it is all I can think about! I am excited to see what the mountains are like here in Europe because the only places that I have ever skied are all in Colorado!

Well I have to go but Merry Christmas once again and I wish you all love and joy in the New Year! I will talk to you all soon! Oh and to all the skiers and boarders in the club, take a run for me!!

Carlo Gavatorta - Hi everyone!

Hi everyone! I'm Carlo Gavatorta and I'm the exchange student from Italy living in Steamboat. It's been 3 months now since I got here and I simply love Steamboat. I will move to my second host family next week and I really enjoyed my first family. I'm sad I have to leave them but that's the program and I have to follow it, hopefully I will be able to keep doing activities with them cause they are a lot of fun. School is going good and I'm enjoying the American school a lot. I have made friends even though at the beginning it was pretty difficult, but after 3 weeks I found very good friends.

I just had my second snowboarding lesson today and I really like it. I have to say that I'm pretty lucky to be in Steamboat because it's such an amazing town and there's a lot of stuff to do. Also the ski-area donates me a ski-pass and equipment which is a very cool thing. The rotary Club here is very active and they really take care of me and the other exchange student. School is not very hard and just the first two weeks my brain had to work so hard that I got tired a lot, but when I went over that and I felt more confident with the language everything has been way easier.

America is a cool country and I am really glad I am living this experience.

Carlo

Maggie Kriz - 85 Deň!!! Zlaté Oči!!!

Ahoj Steamboat Rotary Club!

I honestly can't believe that it is already November! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was boarding a plane headed to europe and now, after adding up the days on my calendar, I see that I have been here for 85 days already, I guess they really weren't lying when they said that time flies when you are having fun! It is so amazing to think back on everything that I have done these first few months, I don't even know where to begin.

Our first district rotary meeting was in a town about three hours away from Spišská called Strečno and it was so amazing to be able to meet all the other exchange students. There are about 60 exchange students in Slovakia and the Czech Republic that have home countries ranging from Brazil to Japan. It was a great weekend, we saw one of the oldest and most famous castles in Slovakia (there are two right across the river from each other and it is said that that is a secret passage connecting the two that they have not found yet). They also arranged for us to go on a rafting trip down the river at sunset and it was so picturesque seeing the reflection of the colors on the water.

Our next district meeting was in a town called Banska Bystrica and it was over my birthday! We had such a great time getting to bond more (and this time being able to talk about missing home with other people who understood). They arranged for us to have a tour of the historic town and then had a delicious lunch in the town square. That night we had a disco and they rotary club got me a huge cake to share with everyone! It was so amazing!

I am still loving my town and feel truly blessed with my first host family. They are amazing people and have really helped to make me feel at home in such a unique and completely different setting. They also did a fantastic job with making me feel better about the loss of my grandfather, who died on October 16. I really am going to miss having such an amazing man in my life and I have some regret with missing his funeral but I feel that he would have wanted me to move on and have a great experience so I am doing my best to fully come to terms with the loss.

I also have an amazing group of friends that I spend a huge chunk of my time with. I am so lucky to have found such great people so early on in my exchange. I do, however, feel like the new toy sometimes. Every time that I meet someone knew (which is almost every day) they want to know if life in America is like they see in the movies... I always hate to break it to them that American high school is not as glorified as they make it out to be in Hollywood.

My free time is usually spent playing volleyball at my high school, out with friends, or in art classes that I am taking at the local art school here. We also had a "production" at my school called Imatricule which was a series of choreographed dances and skits which were interspersed with hazing of the freshmen class (via public humiliation)... it is their way of accepting them as their classmates. It was really entertaining, but I must admit some of the pranks were a little over the top.

The food here is pretty good be also very different! It is very hearty and they rarely eat out. Most of it consists of some type of potato, cabbage, and meat.... I have to admit that I do miss ethnic food! But so far I have made my family some mexican food that they really love. Also, this thursday we will be celebrating Thanksgiving, my father is going to have all the exchange students from our town (there are three others) over to our house and we are going to show them how America does a feast!!! He is kind enough to make the turkey but I am going to fix everything else... I hope it turns out ok!

Maggie Kriz

Claire Parsons - 2 Months? No Way!

Hello Everyone!

I've been so busy (in a good way) here that when I finally stopped to figure out how long I'd been living in Belgium, I was shocked to realize that this coming Friday will indeed mark 8 weeks from when I took off from Denver. Wow! And in these 8 weeks I've been so lucky to do so much and experience so many things! Since I can't possibly talk about it all I'll include some highlights!

Kayaking: Two Saturdays ago Rotex put on this Kayaking activity available to all exchange students in Belgium. (There are three different districts in total) Early that morning I took the train from Brussels to Dinant (a small town in southern Belgium) and spent a wonderful, beautiful sunny (sunny? Belgium? YES!) day kayaking down a river with 200 other exchange students from around the world!

Liege: My current host dad works as a lawyer in Liege (a town in eastern Belgium about 1 hr. away from Brussels) so I was lucky enough to be invited to the VIP section of the inauguration of the Gare de Liege (train station in Liege) to see the spectacle at the beautiful train station designed by the famous architect Santiago Calatrava.

Rotary Meeting: My Rotary club here in Brussels is pretty intense which is why I was terrified when I had to make an impromptu speech (in french!) about my life in Steamboat, and in Belgium so far. It went surprisingly well though!

School: School has by far been the toughest obstacle I've encountered here so far. I'm in 9 rigorous courses where the teachers (though very involved) treat me like one of the Belgians. Learning about the economic crisis in French has proven nearly impossible, memorizing french poems weekly isn't easy, and the different methods in math have proved very difficult to master. I keep on working though as I know in a few months I'll understand nearly everything!

Friends: Being an exchange student from America is exhausting really. Everyone here is absolutely obsessed with America and I'm constantly being bombarded with questions about California, New York, Abercrombie Clothes, Yellow school buses, "pom-pom girls"(cheerleaders) and colgate ("the colgate american smile") toothpaste all of the time. I don't mind it though! I laugh and say "c'est pas comme les films!" (It's not like the movies)....and that always comes with a little bit of disappointment. As friends go however some of my best friends so far are my three AMAZING host siblings! At school it takes a little bit longer to move past being just acquaintances, though I know I'm getting there! It's also nice to compare how many kisses I get at the beginning of school everyday now compared to when school first started! (When greeting and saying goodbye to someone one kiss on the cheek is used!)

I'm absolutely loving living here, and having an amazing new cultural experience every single day. I'm so incredibly lucky!

I hope everything is well in Steamboat!

à bientôt!

Claire