2 weeks until Germany and it still feels utterly surreal. This past weekend was the Central States Rotary Youth Exchange weekend (CSRYE). The days were filled with meetings that were decently informative though rather repetitive. But I'd rather have a rotary that over prepares me rather than under prepares me so I'm not complaining. Both nights we had dance parties which were wicked fun. Now I only wish I was headed for Latin America so they could teach me to dance! I also fell in love with all the Spanish and Portuguese songs by the end of Saturday night, they're just so much more fun to dance to even if I don't know what in the world is being said...
There was also the traditional "Brasil against The World" soccer game one afternoon. I was able to play for a few minutes but I had to really fight the boys to let me on. They'd grown tired of being out played by the all boys Brazilian team so when I swapped on, an athletic inbound ran up and told me to get off the field. Why he thought that would work, I have no idea. The next play came down to my end of the field, I carried it straight down the middle for half the field and laid it off in an easy pass to a girl standing wide open at the corner of the 18. She proceeded to fall over in her attempt to kick the ball. (Okay so maybe that was the reason why "The World" boys were trying to keep us girls off the pitch.) Anyways, after that I got high fives from most of the boys on both teams and an almost apology from the kid who had tried to sub me out. Hopefully they won't count out the girls quite so quickly next time. I gave up my spot to the next person who wanted to sub in and keeping with tradition, Brasil won the game. After the game we set up a game of 8v8 that was a lot of fun because everyone was relaxed and just out to have a good time. This did however make me late and sweaty for the pin exchange.
I'm afraid I'll never have a super covered blazer just because I'm a big believer in collecting memories and experiences rather than souvenirs and things (being perpetually late might also inhibit my pin collecting abilities, but let's just chalk it up to principles instead) I don't have souvenirs from anything because I always end up asking myself if shopping is really what I want to do while I'm traveling and the answer is always no. Of course pins are a little different, and some people may argue that a pin is a memory and that trading is an experience to remember but in a mass trade where I don't even know someones name I just don't get as excited as the rest of the exchange students. I did still trade a fair amount and will be flying with a half full blazer so I will scream Rotary Exchange Student just as loudly as the next blazer clad kid, don't worry!
I must warn any future exchange students going to CSRYE, there was very little sleep to be had all weekend. I slept all of 4 hours the first night and then did not sleep again until the car ride home at 10am on Sunday. There is a strict curfew of course, but only for being inside your dorm building. I spent all of Saturday night with a fun bunch of outbound, inbound, and rebound students who have all become very good friends of mine. There's something about exchange students, even those of us who haven't left yet that binds us all together. Maybe it's that we've all had the courage to leave our homes to enter into these great adventures. What ever it is, exchange students really are the most universally fun group of people you will ever meet.
Basically if you are going to CSRYE get ready for a fun time, and keep in mind that nobody ever remembers the nights that they get enough sleep (;
Tschuess!
~M
No comments:
Post a Comment