Rotary Youth Exchange 2013/14

Monday, March 24, 2014

Orientation Meeting - Davenport

On the first of March some other exchange students and I drove up to Davenport which is on the border to Illinois. We had another Rotary Meeting with all the Inbounds and Outbounds. Some time in May we will have a big event where a bunch of important Rotary people will be and we will have to walk in with the flag from the country we are from/we are going to. At that meeting we had to make a big poster board about our country. So we got together in groups with the outbounds and started. My lovely partner Kate, who will go to Austria this summer, and I were a little bit unprepared, but we got to take the poster board home so I am working on finishing it up right now.
The main focus on that weekend was to have fun though! We drove to a building with a glass bridge that was over the street to see the Mississippi river. It was amazing, because we were so high over the street!
After that we drove to a Tractor Museum. I have never seen bigger tractors in my life! It was amazing! We got to sit in some of them too which was pretty awesome.
Later we went ice skating. It was so much fun! Some people have never been ice skating in their life and it was just so funny to teach them how to do it and to see them sliding on the ice. Sadly we had to leave earlier than planned, because it snowed so badly that the roads became very slippery. On our way home we hardly could make it up a hill and slid around - it was a bit scary! Everybody made it to the hotel safely though.
In the evening we just played games, or told stories and just had fun! Unfortunately we all had to go into our rooms, because the drunk people from the wedding party that took place in the same hotel put two chairs in the pool and we got blamed for it which was really unfair! We were allowed to be in each others room till 3am so that was not bad. The girls in my room and me had a lot of fun - it was one of the best weekends ever!

Everybody working hard

More people working

So there were those random ducks

Mississippi River

The glass bridge

I love this picture, because you can see the river in the background

For some reason I like this picture even though I look horrible, but at least Alejandro has a nice smile

I am eating Justin's head

Casually sitting in a tractor wheel

The typical Franzi-Hannah-weirdo-picture

what?

A little french guy being a kid again

My favorites! Plus a spanish photobomb

And those are not even all of them!

weirdos!

My italian girl. Heart her!

Foreigners being foreign

Sunday, March 16, 2014

7 MONTHS

Time passes way way way too fast! I remember when I wrote "I still have 9 months left", well now I only have 4 months left and I will spend one of those on a tour. I don't know if I told you already, but I am going on a tour through America, starting in Iowa City, coming through LA, Texas, Florida, New York and ending in Chicago. I will post a picture of the route later in this post.
Sadly I started working out a date for my flight back. I don't have it all figured out yet, because my travel agent is on holiday right now, but I will probably come back around the 12th of July. It makes me sad that I have to think about that already. Sometimes when I lay in bed at night and listen to music, I think about how my life is going to be when I come back home. It will be different, because we all moved on, but to be honest: I have no clue what to expect.

So to update you all: I set myself an alarm on my phone for the Sunday of every week that tells me to work on a post for my blog. I don't know if that many things happen every week and if it's worth talking about those things, but at least it reminds me to start working on a post and if I have nothing to talk about I will write about American stuff or so. Would you guys like that?

The past week I can say I have been sore every day without exception! Monday from dance the day before, Tuesday from track practice and the rest of the week from weight lifting and track practice combined. Even tho I am sore and everything hurts, I can't wait for the next lifting session. I want to get strong and get that body into a nice shape! It's also fun to lift with my girls and as it's after school and not in the morning it's totally fine.

Prom is now pretty close. That's why my host mum, my host sister, Franzi and I drove up to Iowa City to look for a dress. We tried quite a few, but neither of us bought one. I just couldn't decide between three. I don't know what to do! I have been thinking about it for a day straight and I talked to friends about it, but it didn't really help. We will see which one I will pick.

That's it for now I guess… I have another big post planned so stay tuned and see you next Sunday! (thanks to my reminder)

My friend got a guinea pig. His name is Percy and it has swirls

The tour! 1 month with the best people of the world
89 days left

Basic joke...

Aaaaah best smoothie ever!

I liked this one a lot, but you could see through and see that weird skirt - that's a no

I don't know about that one...

I really liked the shape of this dress and especially the sequence, but the colour was not that good - no.

My personal top favourite. It is a little long, so I would need to get that fixed

The back of it

Number two of the ones I can't decide between

My favourite girl!

And number three - I like this one a lot too

Monday, February 17, 2014

6 MONTHS

Okay so I feel very bad right now, because I haven't posted anything in forever. It has been like a month or so. I always tell myself to write a post. Yes, there are actually things happening I could write about, but I never have the patience to sit down and work on a post. It takes me about one and a half to two hours to write a post, just because of selecting and uploading pictures and reading through the whole thing about three times to make sure that there are no mistakes.

However, a lot of things happened in that past month. People start asking me when I have to go home and if I can ask my parents to just move to America so I don't have to leave. I wish… It's making me sad! I can't believe that over a year ago, on February 11th, I finally finished that long long long application and sent it in way too late. For those who didn't read my first blog post: Normally people apply in like September/October, but I was really late. I only got a place, because somebody else dropped out and I am very lucky and thankful for that. A year ago! It feels like it was yesterday. It is unbelievable!

So the month of February started pretty well with a shopping day in Iowa City with Franzi, Laís and Lucas from Brazil and Justin, a guy going to Spain next year. We also went ice skating in the mall. Later we all drove to Laís' house and had tons of fun! After the guys had gone home, we watched a movie, but I don't really know what happened, because I fell asleep after about ten minutes.

I also watched wrestling a little while ago for the first time. It's … interesting. Kind of gross and also so fascinating! I wouldn't do it, because I wouldn't want to get touched everywhere and hurt and also I wouldn't want to have the butt of the guy i wrestle in my face - no thanks. I think that the guys and girls who wrestle are really strong and I admire them for working really hard on their body.
The wrestling cheerleaders are cool to watch. They sit on the wrestling mat and their cheers mainly consist of clapping and hitting the mat. So awesome!

We also had the "Coaches vs Cancer" basketball game which was a fundraiser. The basketball players, boys and girls, wore pink and we, the cheerleaders, had funny outfits, which you will see later. Some girls cut their hair to donate it for wigs for people with cancer and the the coach of the girls and some guys shaved their head.

At another basketball game we had a cake auction. People bring their self made cakes and then there is a sheet of paper where other people can write their name in and how much they want to pay for it. So if I write let's say $20 for a cake I like and somebody else wants it too, then this other person can write his name under mine and can offer to pay $25. The cheerleaders also made a cake and I think it would have deserved the first place.

On Saturday there was The Battle Of The Bands. Students can perform alone or in a group and then the students vote for the winner. It was so cool to see the amazingly talented students!

Concerning Valentines Day: It is a big deal here - like pretty much everything. As there are a lot of couples in my school, many flowers and giant teddy bears are delivered right to school and you can also order one flower which will be delivered anonymously to your Valentine. I think it's really cute!

I also moved to my third family, the Schindler's, on Saturday! I was soooo excited! My new mom's name is Dawn, my new dad is Greg and I have a freshman brother named Kyle and a junior sister with the name Kayla. I share a room with Kayla which is kinda new for me. It means less space and privacy, but I don't really have a problem with that. It will take me a while to get used to everything in the new house and with the new family, but it is a new chapter in my exchange and it has started pretty well.

Yesterday Greg, Kyle and I drove all the way up to Cedar Falls to go to a silo. One side of it is covered with ice and you can climb up. That's exactly what we did. We put on the safety belt, the shoes with the spikes and helmet and got started. The first time I didn't even make it half way. Believe it or not, but it is really hard to get up the ice. The second time I made it a little bit over the half and I was very proud of myself. It was such a fun day!!

Now I'm going to show you some pictures!