Soup of life: week 1

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The past week has been a whirlwind of activities. information and new places. Following directions, following maps, following people. Today is Monday and just more than a week ago I was at home packing a big ass blue suitcase and hoping that it would weigh less than 50 pounds at the airport. I hosted a goodbye party with my friends, we watched Jurassic Park at the city park in Creswell, OR, and I tried my best to stay on track as the hours on the clock ticked down until it was time to leave for the airport. I spent the mornings trying to capture everything I love about Oregon and my home on camera for future reference, resulting in many good photos to share with my host families. Woot!

Union Station

Last Monday Aug 3 I flew to Washington DC for 2 days of program orientation with my fellow ASSE CBYX delegates (50 of the 250 cbyx participants). Together we represent all of the northwestern states including HI and AL. I found out that I will be the only CBYX ASSE exchange student near Leipzig, though I hope that there will be someone else from another exchange program there

The Smithsonians! (aerospace museum)

Oregon cbyx 2015!!

In D.C. we perfected the art of being tourists, and like contestants on a weird gameshow we were handed $10 for lunch and given a schedule of appointments to meet with our state senators and house representatives (or their representatives)! It was so much fun to talk about the program!

Peter DeFazio's assistant and I talked about CBYX,  and living in Eugene/Springfield area

On Wednesday we all visited the State Department and toured the Dulles airport before our United Airlines redeye to Frankfurt. On the plane our seats were scattered around, and I got the chance to sit with our in flight ASSE escort, Rome. He told me about living in Laguna Beach and working for the exchange program as well as teaching high school history, amongst other subjects.
If you were wondering, yes there were at least three babies on the flight. I can still hear them ringing in my ears, but despite this, I managed 4 or so hours of sleep on the plane and my jet lag corrected itself within the first day.

We split into language camp groups (Dusseldorf, Aachen, and Hamburg) and took the train from Frankfurt to Hamburg. There we all split again to meet host families and settle in.
Today (after three full days of German experiences) we started language camp in our respective cities. Class is very fun!!! 

In Hamburg I have two host families because I am here in the middle of summer vacation when they travel! Together we all had the weekend to relax, become bilingual, cook German and American food, and get to know each other.  In case you were wondering, Nutella and bread rolls are very very good here. In the near future I will write a post dedicated to German foods because if I start now, this post will be too long for anyone to read in one sitting! Ok. Here are some pictures of my first week in Germany. Tschuss!

My host sister and me!

The Igel of Buxtehude

Can you find the wind turbines?

Spaghetti Ice Cream!!

Catching up on Summer!

A lot has happened since school got out on June 10th and I said goodbye to the small comfortable home that Pleasant Hill High School has been for me during the last 5 years. (yes it's a 7-12 high school)

1st of all, the school was demolished. My small comfortable school is now actually gone for good until it will be replaced with a shiny new version of itself; born again from the fiery ashes in 2017..

The school that is no more

2nd, I got my driver's license! I may have been 17, well overdue for the verified country-raised child's personal celebration of legal freedom, but all the same! Huzzah!! I am broke for cash and I can transport myself wherever I want until I leave!

3rd, I finished my spring administrative internship with picfest, an international children's choir festival here in Eugene that works in partnership with the Oregon Bach Festival to bring professional children's choirs together for a non-competitive week of singing and inspiring. During the festival I worked with a group from Quezon City, Philippines named the Hail Mary the Queen Children's Choir. They melted my heart. Honestly, this was the highlight of my year. Not only very talented and very entertaining to watch in performance, spending time with these kids there was an electricity about them. They are filled with kindness and they are humorous and respectful and amazing and mature and gahh! SO CUTE. 

HMtQCC performing "Roar" with choreography

While I was working in Eugene, I had to say goodbye to Juan, my lovely exchange student from Burcaramanga, Colombia. We all had a fantastic year having a little Latin spice in our lives, and it was sad to see him go! The benefits of hosting exchange students has been tremendous on me during the past few years. If you've never hosted, I highly recommend it. There are plenty of organizations out there that will send you bios of kids who need families to host them (Placing happens May-September so jump on AFS's or ASSE's or 4H's website and get on it!) and like I mentioned, the experience will be worth it's weight in gold if both the exchange student and the host family make the most of the opportunity. 

Juan's last weekend at Hayward Field
(LtoR: Me, Jenna, Juan)

After the first week (The treble-choir festival), I took a short vacation to Mt. Shasta, California to catch up with friends and help set up an amazing music camp there. In the process we completely ignored commercial 4th of July activities and instead played trad. Appalachian fiddle tunes to celebrate the history and culture of the United States. That and a serious acoustic bouzouki Beatles' jam.

The octacve mandolin (or Irish Bouzouki) works well with the Beatles' asthetic

Then back to picfest for the young men's festival, where I didn't guide a choir but instead served as administrative assistant aka Go-for, and festival photographer.

I worked on Teen Crew at a music festival near Eugene. It was awesome! I hung out backstage, listened to good music, ran errands, and got paid in food vouchers (all of which seem to be themes of my summer jobs...) 

Me and some snazzy fruit salad- my favorite food on earth

During the last week of the July, the dog days of summer, we showed 4H rabbits and poultry at the local county fair. My favorite part was judging the clover bud (1st - 3rd grade) showmanship, and hearing about the kid's animals by asking them questions about chicken breeds, rabbit lifecycles, guinea pig handling techniques, and even the inevitable, "Can you tell me what you feed your chinchilla?". I didn't do a lot of competing this year (after scoring big last year and setting the record for meat chicken profits at the auction) and used it as a week to have fun and spend time on my German and packing my suitcase full of gifts from home and sweaters. 

The 4H fair, a smashing success!

Meat rabbits hang out in the +90° heat

Phew! Well, all of that leads me up to today. This week has been filled with chilling and swimming and hiking, intermixed with napping and German learning and suitcases. My senior pictures are done (Woot!) and I've spent time with friends that I will be glad to see again in 10 months!  

Here are just a few more scenes of summer to make up for starting a blog so close to the beginning of the school year!  Thank you for reading!

My sis's birthday cake!

ladybugs at sunrise

The house band at the Emerald Valley Opry

Whoa... I'm an exchange student now?

This summer has raced by. The berries have ripened and dropped from their low hanging boughs, the kids have begged me to take them swimming so many times that I have begun to actually enjoy swimming, both the hay bales and I have dried and turned golden in the long heat of June and July, and the hiking at dawn has shown me some of the most beautiful sunrises of Oregon I have ever seen. I've been busy! During the past six months, I have been preparing to spend my senior year studying abroad in the incredible country of Germany with the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship by finishing high school early and enjoying every drop of life here in good ol' Oregon. Despite my best efforts, it seems to be only coming clear to me this week that I am actually taking the international trip and I am actually finished going to high school in the United States. WOWZA!
I hope you will join me in my travels as I navigate life in Deutsch during the 2015/16 school year!