Host Family/School/Town [[July 03, 2009]]

Well since I am in the blogging spirit tonight I thought I would tell you about my fabulous first host family so you know who I'm going to be talking about for my first 3 months or so there. For those of you who don't know, during my exchange I stay with about 3 host families during my whole exchange and switch every few months or so. I stay in the same town and same school though. And for kicks and giggles I'll throw in information about my school and town too. I'll know more about those when I get there though.

My First Host Family:
My Host Family is amazing. Wilfried and Zanete are my host parents. My host dad works as an engineer and my host mom helps out with the buisiness that they both own. My host mom is from Latvia and used to work for Latvian Television before moving to Germany. My host sister Madara is the one who emailed me. She is going on exchange to Austrailia while I'm there. I also have a host brother Jan, a host grandma Loni, and a host dog, Diana. They all are really musical (except my host grandma and my host dog, haha). My host sister and my host dad are in rock bands. And most play or played the piano. I was so happy to hear this because I LOVE MUSIC. And it's going to be really nice to live in a musical family. I hope I'll fit right in. Cross your fingers!

My School:
My school is called Gymnasium Syke. There are about 1600 students and 100 teachers at my school. Which is huge compared to our what, 300-400 students at KCHS?? There are several different types of schools there and there are a lot of them. The school is from grades 5th to 13th, which I think is equal to grades 4th to 12th because I think they count 1st grade there as our kindergarden. Don't quote me on that though.

My Town:
Syke is a middlesized town with a population of about 18,000. Once again, a lot compared to Kenai. haha. It is near the large cities of Bremen (20 miles), Hamburg (75 miles) and Hanover (60 miles).

Vocab (Thanks Anna!) [[July 03, 2009]]

I saw that Anna (also going to Germany), on her blog put up some key words so you know what us silly exchange kids are talking about, and I thought it was a good idea. P.S. I copied and pasted it from hers, I hope she doesn't mind!)

YEO- Youth Exchange Officer, the person whom I communicate with most often with (in reference to a Rotary Club Member).

IB- Inbound, an exchange student in a foreign country. (Ex, me in Germany, through German eyes)

OB- Outbound, A student from a country in another. (Ex, me in Germany... through American eyes)

RB- Rebound, an old/past exchange student (Ex, me when I get back from Germany)

FB- Facebook, the newest form of Myspace aka the exchange student's bible for communication

You probably wont be hearing any of these until later. Just know there are here for use. =]

Introduction/Itinerary [[July 02, 2009]]

Well, I thought that I would formally introduce myself since it is my blog. My name is Saraya and I am going to be going on a Rotary Youth Exchange to Syke, Germany. I leave on July 29th. Which is coming up really soon. I am really excited to go. I finally got my itinerary and stuff today. The whole exchange feels official now. It's not really going to sink in until I get on the plane though. Which is a really long plane ride I might add. First I start in Kenai, Alaska; then I go to Anchorage, Alaska; then I'm off to Portland, Oregon; then the extremely long plane ride to Amsterdam, Netherlands; after that then I fly over to Bremen, Germany; then I get picked up and drive to Syke, Germany. Thankfully it's close, because with all of that flying, the first thing I'll want to do is go home and sleep!