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5/17/07 from Alyssa in Switzerland

 

 

 

A Vacation in pictures. The beautiful city is Dresden, which was basically destroyed in WWII (Where Kurt Vougnet nearly died and was saved only by the meat locker of "slaughterhouse V".) The beautiful chocolate thing you see above is a Schoggigipfelli, which I eat fairly often at the school. The town by the lake is Ligerz, where I spent my time singing Dido and Aeneas or "Di beschte Musig di Wält" and jumping in and out of the freezing lake (which the picture testifies, that day I was in for half an hour with Tanja). A picture of Carla, Uli ( a friend of the host parents, who is completely awesome), and I after doing a weird obstacle course thing that was great fun. there's also a picture of my Chorus book, which is filled with such faciful doodles. Oh, and a picture from a train that goes from biel to Zurich illustrating the correct way to use a telephone, in case you didn't know.

My foot hurts, I think I killed it in Ligerz, where I got to play Dido, who dies, which was cool. I am apparently good at the death thing.

FANTASTIC NEWS!!! My Theater Group gets to go to Schauspielhaus Zurich for a whole week and do workshops and such because we rock (there was a contest, and 7 of 30 groups get to go). I miss a whole week of school to do theater. The best part is that we get to do the whole play one last time. I am excited to play Hamm. Hopefully this time someone will get the whole thing on a working recording.

 

Other than that, not much is going on. Birthday party tonight, mountians tomorrow, school monday. My big MP3 players buttons have decided not to work, so I am back to the small MP3 players that I love so much (LeighAnne's to be more specific.) I am once more completely in love with Inspector Lynley, though I must say it is impossible to watch in German; it just doesn't work. I am planning to hop off to Zurich sometime to buy another book (I bought A Suitable Vengence, which is a Lynley Mystery, and the biography of Katharine Hepburn for my trip to Germany).

I don't have much time left. It's basically summer here. Until next time!!

 

5/13/07 from Christine in Germany

 

okay.. so the time has come for me to face this mountain of photos in my camera... that's right, folks, the eurotrip is officially over and christine has two, count em, two memory cards worth of pictures. alright, so we met up in berlin and sam, nolan and i kicked off the trip with a visit to a local jazz club, very small and cozy, which we only found because sam knew the saxophone player, who has been here for about five years, yet can speak no german and still manages to teach saxophone at one of the universities.. he's that good. so all in all the jazz was amazing, and sam was really into it... we spent the second day hanging out at the old line where the wall used to be.. this line runs right through berlin where the wall used to be.

then we took a ride down to the east side gallery, where they let a piece of the wall stand for artists.. yes, i wrote that.. 'es lebe berlin' means basically 'long live berlin' which, although not incredibly profound, was all i could think of. i did not, however, make that funny little sketch, which i would think represents the strengthened link between east and west berlin since the wall came down. oh, and this is the olympiastadion, the olympic stadium, which is really nice, but we couldn't go in because there was going to be a soccer game that night... and they take their soccer seriously.

so the next stop after berlin was dresden, but i had issues with finding my converter in my giant bag, so my camera wasnt charged. anyway, there we celebrated my birthday, and all of my friends threw a surprise party for me at night. i had also been intelligent enough to absolutely forget my cell phone in the hotel in berlin so i couldnt call my host parents or get the call from my real parents. so that was kinda sad..

anyway, after dresden, we moved on to prague, which was absolutely beautiful. karin and i took this cute picture from the monestary on the top of the hill there. prague is supposed to be called the city of a thousand towers, because, though you can't really see it in this picture because of the fog, the towers are beautiful and there are tons of them. there we went for a tour and saw where franz kafka often lived, which was really, really cool.. (franz kafka-- die verwandlung... i forget how it's called in english, but this book is about a guy who wakes up to find himself turned into a bug.. we read it in english last year... shame on me for forgetting the name.)

then we saw the changing of the guard and, although we weren't in england, we still had fun messing around with the guards. ha.. i love the smile on that guy's face.. the only downer in prague was that we couldn't understand a word of the language, and the people there couldn't understand english, nor could they understand german. so life turned into a game of charades and i was reminded of the hopelessness of my first couple of weeks here in germany...

so the next stop after prague was vienna. here we saw the tausendwasser haus, which i had seen before, so being stupid, i didnt take any pictures. but it's this big apartment complex which is designed in this really wicked colorful way, with mirrors all over the place and.. well. its difficult to explain. anyway, after the tausendwasserhaus, we went out to eat...

so. we made some funny faces,

we ate some wiener schnitzel... (wiener= V V V V Viener. with a v. its called that because although we say vienna, the germans and austrians call it Wien.. Wien+'er'= wiener schnitzel. hope i've cleared up all of the 'wiener questions.' ^.^ but the most important thing to know is that wiener schnitzel = YUM!!!)

oh. and we did nolan's hair to make him pretty for the evening.

and then we went to the opera. which was very nice. we saw fledermaus. but some were so dead tired that they just fell asleep in the boxes...

but some of the most fun memories of the trip were the bus adventures.

at one point, in vienna, we saw a ford sign on the side of the road. which lead to fifteen american exchange students jumping up from their seats and taking pictures of it. i guess it was a little piece of home? mine, however, turned out a little blurry.

so while laura the italian pretended to be mexican (and even grew a moustache to attempt authenticity, a lot of us (including me) took the opportunity to catch up on our sleep...

so thats about halfway with the pictures. i'll do another post later with those from italy and munich.

lots of love!!

christine

 

/13/07 from Christine in Germany

5/2/07 from Alysa in Switzerland

Hi John!

I want to thank you for the email "So You Think You're Home Now." I didn't respond to it right away, I think at that point a few weeks ago, I was all too ready to sort of pack it in. My host family had started to get on my nerves, I guess that happens when you don't change host families at all.

The question from my friends in America that annoys me most is "So...how's Switzerland?" My normal response is "Economically stable." It seems that the combination of my going abroad and my friends all going off to college strained our friendships. Only one really knows about what goes on in my life here. The others...ask me "So, how is switzerland?" I think that's been the hardest.

I don't know at all what sort of a life I am comming back to. I can't tell how I've changed. I can't even tell the differences between Swiss and American culture anymore. I think that maybe I've adjusted too well. I get the feeling that I won't know much about swiss culture until I am back in America, as weird as that is. Someone once asked me what my mom cooked for dinner at home. I honestly couldn't remember.

My friends here are amazing. Completely. I have a crazy one as well, who would really fit in in America. They've decided to fight the Swiss norms and become more open and friendly because of me. They even signed a pact to sit next to a random stranger on the bus (even if the bus is totally empty otherwise) and start a conversation. Very Un-Swiss. Sadly I don't think I'll be sad about leaving my exchange student friends, as I really don't have any, but my classmates? My classmates I will miss for the rest of my life.

I keep looking at my agenda. I have about two months left here, but I am so busy. I have something written in for nearly every day. Chorus Camp is now behind me (though it was completely and totally amazing! We're singing Opera! I never thought I'd like it, but I love it.) Theater Workshops at Schauspielhaus Zürich (our play won a competition, so we get to join 6 other theater groups for a week in Zürich). I just signed up for the rowing team and had my first practice today, our championships competition is June 2nd. I am going to an Open-Air concert with my friends. Next week, I have my first field trip ( a Geology excursion to the Alps to talk about rocks), the Kanti-Ball dance this Saturday. I feel that this is all going to go by really fast, but I also feel the year winding down. It's really ending. My friends are talking about next year, their Schwerpunktfächer (um..sort of like a focus or major), Sonafe, Internships, a class camping trip. I won't be there for any of it. No more S12 to Zürich to look at shop windows. No more GA, which allows me to travel on public transportation free to the farthest corners of Switzerland...most importantly NO MORE SCHOGGIGIPFELLIS! (chocolate filled croissants. breakfast, with a hearty dose of chocolate to start the day right.)

And at the same time, I am ready to go home. I want to see my parents. I want to sit in a comfortably furnished living room. I want to NOT have to share a bloody computer with a host sister who couldn't find more spyware if she tried. I even want to see my brother, as strange a thought as that is. I want to go back to my normal sleeping habits, not those of my host family. I never want to hear the words "Let's go for a small hike" ever again in my life (though I plan to hike the Appalacian Trail now that I have had SO much practice.)

So that is how my mind is working with 69 days, 1 hour, and 23 minutes left in Switzerland. OH and most importantly, I found out today I am not failing any classes, despite studying about as much as I did in america, which is to say, not. Yay for a 4 average!

Ciao

Alyssa

4/21/07 from Christine in Germany

 

hello everyone!!
well.. it's been a while. a lot has happened in the last month and it took a while before i could get on the computer to upload all of these photos.. things have been really great!!
the first couple of pictures here are just me fooling around with my friends and my camera, and turning my friends funny colors... ^.^ the first picture is Jin, my friend whose father works for the Chinese embassy in Berlin, she's really fun.. and this is Gennie, who (obviously) is a bit crazy for austin powers. (i was extremely surprised to find that austin powers exists in germany. but apparently it does, and the translations are pretty much the funniest thing i've ever heard 'ich werde die welt mit einem großen "laser" zerstören' lol) but yeah, G is pretty cool too.
so. these next pictures are of karin and me at huo-guo, which literally means 'hot pot' in chinese. it's sort of like a chinese fondue scenario. you get a big pot of boiling boullion, after choosing spicy, middle spicy, and mild. then you get a bunch of raw vegetables, raw meats, and noodles and you put them in the pot and let them cook for a while. then you take them out and put them in a little bowl with soy sauce to cool them off, and then in an even smaller bowl from which you eat them. sounds complicated, but it's really yummy and thinking about it is giving me a craving right now! heh heh.. yeah, that's me... bet you didn't know i was chinese...
and then.. well.. this is me hanging out with my host dog momo, who is 13 years old and still kicking.. he likes to hang out in my room and mooch for food. but he's cute, so i let him...
and THIS is my attempt at capturing a beautiful moment in berlin. that's the fernsehturm (tv tower) and on that particular night, karin, mattias and i were in a restaurant, but eating outside because it was nice. and then i looked up and saw the huge full moon hanging in the air right next to the fernsehturm.. and this was the result... *shakes head* some things just can't be caught on film.
oh right and so karin and her whole gang from falkensee and i went to the reichstag, which is like the german parliament building, last week. it was really, really great. this is me being impatient to go inside (we had to wait for ami, the argentinian, because he lost his passport. sigh.) yeah and so those blue seats there, that's where the representatives and the speakers sit, along with angela merkel, the bundeskanzellerin... um.. like the president sort of? prime minister is probably closer. my english is suffering. anyway, so the reichstag is the building with the big glass dome over it, where you can walk up and look at the whole city. so this is the roof from the underside.. and this is me and karin chillin' after the presentation that we went to see was over. oh, and when you walk up to the top, there are a whole bunch of mirrors which were designed by the architect to 'bring light to the building'.. but we just used them to see ourselves.. and again.. and again, and again and again. right.. and now the next thing was a rotary function just with our club, and so ashleigh and i were the two celebrity exchange students. we took a tour through katja's candy factory in potsdam and got lots and lots of free samples. of course, we did have to wear these funny outfits, (fabulous!!) but later ashleigh and i made ours better by tying our belts overtop and adding jewelry, hats, and sunglasses. it got better. lol. but we were on our guard the whole time, expecting the oompa loompas to jump out at any moment. unfortunately we were denied the experience of the chocolate waterfall... *hangs head* at the time that we were there, they were making granini minis, which are just fruit flavored mini things.. they're really yummy. and then they had this shop afterwards where you could buy the candy at cheaper prices.. it was just good. and this is me being a kid in a candy factory.
right after the candy factory, and on the same day, i went to meet up with yael, sair, jessica, karin, carlos, and mattias at the hard rock café in berlin.. way to feel like a tourist!! so these are my two friends yael and carlos.. aren't they gorgeous!? lol. after that, karin, mattias and i went to a shins concert...!!!!!!!!!!!! it was really great. i had managed to get the tickets for half price on ebay, although i only had two. so mattias didnt have one. but then as soon as we got there there was a guy outside selling them, so it all worked out. the concert was amazing, also am postbahnhof, the same place where karin and i saw the decemberists. i would post more on here, but most of what i took was video and photos just work better with the blog. i apologize for the blurriness of the photos... but in order to get them i had to stick my hand way up in the air in order to let my camera see over the mountainous man who was standing in front of us. although there were only two people between us and the stage, our view was pretty much the same all night...














(this is the tall guy's back. a.k.a. our view)

so basically things are still moving along over here... hanging out with karin pretty often, just because she's cool like that... ... even if the pictures dont show it. lol... i believe in this next picture we were having a contest to see who could open their mouth further (i don't know why... we get bored sometimes.) and so it just turned out looking like we were both really afraid of each other...














but basically, i'm trying to avoid the basic truth. it's almost over. i can't believe i only have a couple of months left! it went so fast! sniff, sniff... but berlin is beautiful, and sunny, and bright.. so sunny and bright, in fact, that i am motivated to make such pictures as this one:

i'm just one happy kid.


lots of love, hugs, and kisses!
-Christine

 

4/6/07 from Aishah in Brazil

4/6/07 from Julia in Russia

To my dear Rotary club,

I wanted to write you all a letter to thank you for YOUR letter--the letter which I received from John Brady about "You think you're home now." It so perfectly described my thoughts and feelings for the past few weeks. I was just walking home from school the other day, and I thought about how I'd felt about my city during the going of the exchange--first, I felt that I was in the midst of this huge and almost magical world, and I just dove right into the culture. I didn't think of myself as a foreigner, because I didn't yet understand the depths of the cultural differences. Then, after about two months, I just felt battered down by the constant difficulties, and felt that I needed to defend my identity against the insistent modification of other people. Somewhere in the middle, I stopped feeling like an American, stopped understanding foreigners (at this point, foreigners were the non-Russians), and thought of myself as a Russian. Russia was my home, and America was "that other place."

But now I've reached a strange, different point--I stopped thinking of myself as American, or Russian. I stopped thinking of America, or of Russia, as home. I am always, already, home. I understand the Russians, I understand the Americans--and, the most final stage, I even understand myself. THAT took a long time coming!
So you can imagine how much your letter resonated with me. I want to thank you especially for everything your letter explained--I have very mixed feelings about going back to America. I have had a wonderful time in Russia, and it's been tremendously difficult, and I've learned more than I ever have. I love Russia, and I love her culture, and I have friends and family here now whom I don't know how to leave. I don't know how (and don't want to know how) to live outside of Russian culture. But I miss my family! And I know that after this year of school in Russia, I cannot (by law) enter Russian University, so I feel that the next work in my life waits me in America, so I am ready to go home.  One part of me feels terrible that I want to go home! What kind of exchange student is ready to go home at the end of the year? But I know that after this year, the only way to really live a normal Russian life is to work here...and I'll have to finish my education in America to do that.

I'm not sure what to tell you about my exchange--so much happens every single day I'm here. Every day has its own triumphs and disappointments, every host family has its own problems and wonderful quirks. Changing host families especially has been difficult for me.  I don't know how often people usually change families on exchange, but this year I've changed five times, and it's been really complex for me to deal with. It's also been wonderful though--my host moms turned out to be some of my best and most interesting friends, and I got to know the city very well from living in different sectors! I gained independence, and gained a MUCH more diverse understanding of Russian culture than I would otherwise. It never ceases to amaze me how every family feels like a whole new exchange. It seems like every family here has their own vocabulary, and understanding of Russian grammar, too! No two people speak this language alike!

The harder something is to do here, the more rewarding it is in the end! The language is just murderously difficult--but so interesting, and Russians are always delighted with efforts to speak Russian, and very helpful (they love the difficulty of their own language, and take great pride in it.) Getting to know people can be difficult, but once you know them, they're friends for life. Preparing borsch is complex, but the result is to die for!

I guess that's the most important thing I can communicate to you (and which you have no doubt heard an infinite amount of times, and already know!). Rotary exchange is one of the most difficult, most painful, most wonderful, and learning experiences I have ever had. It has been incredibly hard, and tremendously rewarding. I often have a feeling which in Russian is described as "when the soul sings!" I sincerely thank you all for this year abroad.
Yours,
Julia Soper

4/6/07 from Ashleigh in Brazil

John

Thanks so much for that e mail. Now i can understand that these feelings about going home and leave this year behind are normal. I have been a little stressed out about leaving beacuse i love this country and i really dont want to leave but then i have been feeling a little homesick lately and i dont know why and then i look at the calender and i only have two more months TWO MORE MONTHS thats it! I have already been here for 8 months I cant believe I have been away from everything for 8 months. Then i cant believe I am leaving Brasil and everything here. Its kind of bittersweet, beacuse i will be seeing old faces and people that i miss, but then i will be leaving the new faces, new places and everything that I have gotten used to for the past 8 months. I have a feeling its going to be hard to adjust at first but I will always have this exchange and I can always come back. I have the best of both worlds!

Thanks again!!

Ashlegh