Alli Major - Update on Charlton!

I've been here for a little over a month and it's all going great! School is all well and i can take all my necessary courses to graduate! all the people here are nice and friendly and my friends are awesome! my rotary counselor and i are headed down to a town called Horsham next Sunday to meet alll the other Rotary exchange student. there's another student here in my town from Germany but he's not here through Rotary. Every Saturday they have football ((australian rules) and no its not like soccer)) and also netball and field hockey games to go and watch so there's always something on the weekends! anyways this picture is of me (right) my friend kirsty (middle) and Leif the german exchange student. i do my official rotary presentation the 16th of September and my powerpoint is coming together. Anyways im off to the footy games!
Catch ya later mate!
Alli

Zane Elston - Just Got To Chiang Mai

I just arrived in Chiang Mai, and I am loving the city. It is VERY hot haha. I'm about to go register for classes! I couldn't have asked for a better, kinder host family. They are some of the nicest, most loving people I have ever met. I will be attending school at The Prince Royal's College, a Private Christian school with 6,000 kids. I'm very excited to start school and meet some kids. I arrived here at 9:15 and my host family was at Chiang Mai International Airport to pick me up along with my YEO and Club President. It was a short drive home. My house is in the outskirts of the city, but it is still very urban. All of the housed here are only a few feet apart. I will updated this again as soon as I have more to tell you!

Kelly Ernst - All Is Well

Hello! I am writing from Fribourg Switzerland and all is well!

I arrived yesterday morning at 8:15 but it was really 1 pm for the united states. I was very tired but it was all so new and exciting it was good.

My flight went by super well. From DIA to Dulles I met a girl from evergreen and we flew to DULLES together. It was fun because we could talk about tall trees and skiing and understand each other perfectly. We spoke the same language. When we got to Dulles we met up with a girl and a boy who were going to Switzerland. It even turns out that the boy, Andrew is the other exchange student who will be living in fribourg and attending the same school. He is very nice. We had a few hours to kill in the airport and so we went to a small resturant and talked and it was a very good time!

The flight went well and it was nice because there were about 10 or 12 other exchange students on it as well! I sat in the very very back of the plane in the middle. but it was nice because I had the whole entire row to myself on an otherwise full flight. Later in the evening, I started talking to the flight attendent and we got to know each other and it was very fun. She even let me sit in the flight attendents seat for the landing so that I could see the Swiss Alps when we fly into Zurich for our landing.

My host father picked me up from the airport and we drove back to Fribourg. That day, we went to the familys vacation house in Gruyere (a canton ((Like a state)) neighboring Fribourg) it was a ten minute drive and a very very cool place! I got to meet all of cedric and ines ( my host brother and sister's) friends. It was a little bit hard because my french is not quite sufficient enough to keep up with the young peoples conversation, and when ever I was asked a question it would take a long embarrassing time to answer it correctly. (For example they asked me when I was born, and I said "I don't know" several times… :/) But that is okay because I am understanding more and more.

Today, The exchange students of fribourg ( Andrew, a girl named shelby and moi) and the outbound students all went downtown fribourg and did a little walk of the town. It was very pretty and and medevaial. I saw my school which was very modern but it looked very nice. It felt like we were in a jungle!

All is going well here, and I am getting settle!

Ciao!

Alli Major - Arrived!!

Charlton is great! it's their winter here, yet its some of the best summer days for steamboat! im scared to see what summer for me is gunna look like. lol :) the flights went very well althougha nine hour layover in LAX isnt the funnest time spent alone.... it was well worth it tho :) my host family is very nice and inviting. a bit homesick but once it gets more busy over here all should be well. :) I start school on monday and basically get to choose what i want to take :)
I'll write agian soon,
Alli

Alli Major - Leaving Soon!

Hey Guys,
So I leave tomorrow. My flight is at 10:41 in the morning. I think this will be the most stressful part of the whole trip for me. :/ i don't like airports and security and flights and customs. no fun. :/ but i'm glad its getting me where i gotta be :) im so excited to arrive in Austalia and meet my host home. :)
I'll blog again when I arrive,
Alli

Carlo Gavatorta - almost over!

Hey everybody! I can't believe it's almost over! Everything went by so fast. I feel like I got here a few weeks ago. I just got back from the bus trip with all the other exchange students from the 2 districts and I had a blast. It's so amazing how you can get attached to people so easily and so fast. California was awesome and so was the Grand Canyon and all the other places we went to.

I only have one more month and then I'll go back to Italy. It's a really weird feeling because I'm really sad I'm gonna leave Steamboat and I'll have to say goodbye to all my friends and families but I'm happy at the same time because I'll see my family and my friends back in Italy.

The district conference was fun. It's amazing how many rotarians and rotary clubs there are in jsut one district. I feel so lucky to be in this district because it's so active and it involves exchange students in so many events and activities. They care a lot about us.

This was just a quick post about my last experiences. Steamboat is such a great place and every exchange student that ends up here should feel really lucky!

Maggie Kriz - 1 Mesiac a 17 Dni..... Pre Boha!

I just looked at a calendar and I honestly can't believe how quickly this year is going. Celine and Aline always talked about how fast the year would go by but it is hard to imagine until you are living abroad. My family just came to visit me and it was really amazing to see them but also a bit awkward for me at first. It is hard to get into the swing of having a real mother again after living more or less independently for so long. I think it took us both about a day to adjust but after that it was back to normal.

We went to the beautiful city of Barcelona and it was truly amazing. We stayed in the gothic quarter of the city and it was perfect. Our hotel was within 15 minutes from all the major tourist attractions and was literally right around the corner from the gothic cathedral. My favorite museum in the city was the Picasso Museum. I have always admired and loved his artwork and it was fantastic to go to the place where it all began. It was quite an experience to stand before his early sketches and paintings and then to be able to see how he evolved and found his own style, it is something that I will never forget.

We also visited La Palau de Musica Catalana which is an amazing concert hall in the heart of Barcelona. The architecture of the building was amazing; I love that the architecture in Barcelona is an art form rather than just a means to cover people's heads. Every building seemed to be inspired by nature and the details that were used in the construction were breathtaking.

It was interesting with my parents here because I had to work as the translator the entire visit. I often found my self talking to my real family in Slovak because I kept forgetting what language I was supposed to be using. It is rather rewarding, though, because you learn really how well you can speak the language, it was amazing when I realized that I could not only say everything that I want but that I can also translate for other people both from Slovak to English and English to Slovak. (The skill also helped me in Poland and the Czech Republic when we got lost, thank god the languages are so similar....)

As of right now I just have one week and then I will be going on a trip to Greece and Italy (luckily not by plane, my family got stuck in Europe for an extra week because of the ash, of course, I wasn't complaining) with rotary. I am really excited to see both countries and am especially excited to eat the food that comes from the two countries.... GYROS AND PASTA, HERE I COME!!!! I will be home in exactly 1 month and 17 days today and it is crazy to think about but I am also excited to return to my beautiful little mountain town for another summer of working at the Boys and Girl's Club!

See you all soon!