Viva Chile: May 2006

so the Rotex weekend we just hung around a lot. On Saturday we watched a slideshow that Rotex made from the West tour and then East tour for us. There were pictures, music, and videos...RICHTIG GEIL!!! SOOOO AWESOME! All the outbounds, and also some from the West tour, said that the east tour (MY TOUR!!!) looked waayyy better. ohhh yeah! just the people, and our rotexers were really awesome...and we all got a dvd with all the rotex pics and videos...very very funny. We went to the schwimmbad (swimming complex) in the evening and had a little tour of the city, but couldnt have free time because there was a Nazi/anti-nazi demonstration in the city. That was ok though, because then we just stayed at the sport complex place and I played soccer for 2 hours...with most just South Americans. Well throw in a German (rotexer), a swiss, canadian, me, the american, and the rest were: ecuador, mexico, colombia, brazil, argentina...and i was the only girl. RARR feel my wrath. they said i plaid good. i was happy. Ö :) Of course that also meant lots of spanish, then translating from spanish to german, so i could understand what the new rules were.... My train ride back on Sunday was 11 hours long..wow that was long.

Last weekend was the district conference for this district and that was in Säckingen, whihc was cool. I didnt have to go anywhere. We exchange students spoke in front of all the rotarians and i was kinda the leader and organized how we were to do everything so that was also neato.

On Wednesday I met with an exchange student friend of mine from Brazil, Vini, and his family from Brazil. They were making a Germany tour thing and so I met them down here in Southern Germany. Bodensee (Lake Konstanz) is really really pretty...the cities are all right on the lake, its sooo gorgeous. Unfortuneately I just burned the pics onto a cd and forgot to post them first, and now they are deleted. (since I am changing host families on tues....i dont know how long I will be with the next family, hopefully till the end of the excahgne. they live direct in säckingen. voll geil!!).

Yesterday I had my last soccer game and then we had a big party afterwards at the club house, with all the teams (except the little kid teams), and ever plaid soccer in the middle of the night. that was funny. and now im here in the midst of packing...wow brings back stressful memories of my last week at home....

Pictures: the gym on the rotex weekend, the three boys from Ecuador dressed up like girls for our ''Switch party'', ''MONCHINO!!!'' the Brasilien thing where someone yells Monchino (sp??) and everyone jumps ontop of everyone, and then everything hurts...i have been on the bottom several times (that started on eurotour), and it hurts. , Morgan (france) and I after bummin it in the park, Viva Italia! Vini (Brazil) and I sportin the Italy pullis, in the train on the way up north: Jaime (ecaudor) , Belen

(argentina), me, and Nunt (thailand), and then me at a party with some friends....a friend of mine had this hat, i think he said it was from australia, and it said whistkeytown on it!!! COOL

It has rained, and the blog is back. Although there was a drought, yes, that is true. And despite your efforts to get a pull going there Mom, to get a post, it only worked on me, however I did not leave my name. And notice another thing, I am typing with proper grammar right now, or at least at this very moment, because I sort of just feel like it. I suppose I can mention something about Dresden, and why and how I was there, as the only thing I remember posting about Dresden were the photos. I was there with a lady whose husband is in Rotary. Most German clubs are only men, although there are some that allow women in also. That is a rather large conflict right now, whether to convert to the modern ways and allow women, or to stay ''traditional'' and only allow men as actual Rotarians...however the women are invited to one meeting every month, and most of the Rotary activities. Anyway, this lady, Frau Schöke, invited me to come to Dresden with her. I met her at the beginning of the year at my first meeting, and starting in November began meeting with her every Wednesday after school to work on German, and she served as my Rotary councelor for me due to the business of my first one, and the fact that he now lives in Austria. Now we just talk, since my German is getting along much better, but I always have qustions to front about grammar, etc. Two years ago she and her husband hosted an AFS exchange student from Latvia, and she is now studying in Dresden, and is the girlfriend of Frau Schöke's son. So we went to visit her because I had no school on the following Monday and got to skip on that Friday...and that was why and how I got to go to Dresden....

And since then...hmmm what has happened. Quite a bit I would say. I have started to really get some good friends, in my class, and now it's quite sad because I have less than 2 months left, hah one day less, exactly. The following weekend I believe I wasnt gone...I went to a birthday party for two girls in my class, and my friend Sandra and I had to walk to the clubhouse on the Rhein where it was at, and that was creepy..hehe. In the dark walking around the outskirts of the monster city of Säckingen haha. It was fun thoughI had a soccer game though, and played the entire time, despite my messed up foot. I don't know what is wrong with it, but since Paris, it's been messed up. Can't run or play soccer or walk too much before it starts to tut weh...to hurt. The following weekend was the Rotex Eurotour ''Revival'' Weekend...everyone from both east and west eurotours was invited, and also all the outbounds from district 1800, the district that put on the eurotour, in the near from Hannover region. We from the south went up early, like always, and took the 11 hour train route (the region, slower trains), so that it was much cheaper. We had a youth hostel booked for all of us, but something happened, and they said that we would have to pay 21€ each, instead of 13, which they had previously said...SO, we were about 30 exchange students, with no where to sleep, and therefor decided that since it wasnt that cold outside (I was wearing some shorts i made this winter and a tank top), we would find somewhere to sleep...aka a park behind the bahnhof, train station. It was quite fun, free, and the police didnt care. They walked by us and siad Hallo and that was it...those sort of things people can just do here in Germany. It's awesome!!! So if you just take a moment to imagine 30 exchange students, bumming it in a park...very amusing..luckily we all had our sleeping bags with us and all was good. I think I slept about 30 minutes, no lie. It became colder and then was quite hard to sleep. But then again, when we are all together, we never sleep a lot...thats just how it is. I then stood myself at about 5.30 in the morning and went for a quick jog to run some blood into my feet...we were in a park near a creek, so it was quite chilly. Then walked the 5 minutes to the bahnhof and got someting to eat an a capucinno. Then it got warmer, and so we all laid in the sun and tanned. Morgan from France and I went into the city, and since I was in need of some comfy flip flops, since I have only a pair of old navy ones that ow give me blisters for some reason, i would buy some. So I did, and tehy are comfy...adidas birkenstock style sandals, with one strap and white. i like them mucho. And of course H&M always occupies time when I see one...that amazing swedish store that is only on the east coast of the states...the cutest shirt, only €3...ohhhh jaaaaaa.

Then we had the actual rotex weekend. We cleaned up our park and then went to the bahnhof and met the rotexers that were picking us up and traveled on to the sport complex where we were staying with rotex. Alltogether we were soemthing like 170 people, it was insane...messy gym. but now I suddenly have to go, so I will have to finish another time.!!