CSRYE Conference

Every year, Central States Rotary Youth Exchange hosts a conference for a few days at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is no small conference, as it has students from North Dakota, Northern Minnesota, Ontario, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. My district – 5580 – was sort of on the outer brinks, which meant a lot of traveling for us. A total of seventeen districts showed up, with our district easily being the largest area wise, but not people wise since North Dakota, Northern Minnesota, and the part of Ontario in our district is very spread out.

At this district, outbounds, inbounds, rebounds, and rotex all show up. Parents of the outbounds, rebounds, and rotex show up too, so it is a very good opportunity for all terrified outbound parents to learn what it will be like. For the outbound students, it is a chance to bond with the fellow outbound students and learn from the rebounds, rotex, and inbounds who went/live in the country they are going to.

It’s also nothing short of the most insane thing I have ever been a part of. I will attempt to sum it up in one post.

I got there around five o’clock on Thursday, after flying there from the Fargo airport. I immediately met up with Aric (Outbound to Poland) from my district, and then met some rebounds from my district. The rest of the night consisted of me meeting up with the rebound from Denmark who gave me advice the past five months – Cecilia – and running into other Danish inbounds and outbounds! I ended up spending most of the night talking with two other outbounds to Denmark, as the dance was extremely hot.

On about four and a half hours asleep, I got up the next morning to do the many activities for outbounds. We learned how to get good pictures on exchange, officially met the other outbounds/inbounds/rebounds from our country, went to a travel agent session, and had the flag ceremony.

The flag ceremony was insane in itself. All of the countries were represented, and all of the outbounds walked out with their flags. When we got down to the stage, the rest of the outbounds who weren’t carrying the flag sat down. After all flags were there, the people carrying the flags walked all around us and it was really incredible.

However, that was not the craziest part of the flag ceremony for me. While in line for the flag ceremony, I was talking with another outbound to Denmark, and we soon figured out that we had both deferred from Macalester. The chances of this are very small, as Macalester’s average class size is around 500 and Denmark is not a large country. After more talking, we figured out that we had even gone to the same Welcome to Macalester weekend and even one of the same sessions. We were both freaking out – and I know I still am – and I am so glad to have met her! Here is us fairly soon after we found out:

We spent the rest of the night getting to know each other – and for me, getting to know her and some others from her district. I can’t wait to get to know Shannon better, and I feel so lucky that I have another possible future Scot with me in Denmark.

My roommates and I were both tired that night, so we actually got sleep. I got at least five hours in, and I woke up feeling refreshed for the big day ahead. I spent the first part of the day hearing stuff from some really great speakers, which I had also done the previous day.

The afternoon was especially fun because we got to watch soccer (Brasil vs. the world) and volleyball while hanging out. After that, it was the Great Pin Exchange. I came in with about 200 pins, and gave away about 150 of them. I still haven’t finished putting all of them on my jacket, but it was extremely intense. I love making pins, it was fun getting to send them all around the world!

After that,  dinner took place, and we headed over to the much anticipated talent show. This was especially exciting for our district because we knew that one of the performances – Kazuki from Japan’s dance to Gangnum Style – would blow everyone away. I also knew that Tangkwa from Thailand’s song “Just Fine” would melt everyone’s hearts.

The talent show was nothing short of amazing. Tangkwa’s song was one of the cutest things ever, and all of the acts were very impressive. The final act, however, made me telling everyone how great Kazuki was going to be an understatement. Kazuki’s dance is so good that it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, he will still blow your mind. Halfway through the dance he had the crowd on their feet, and it is safe to say that our district could not be more proud to have him.

The rest of the night started with me intending to swim, instead dancing for a little bit, talking with others for a long time, and eventually actually going swimming with Shannon and her friends at the end. I also received the news of my second host family that night, and definitely got less sleep because I was texting my host sister late into the night.

The next morning I work up on three and one half to four hours of sleep, otherwise known as dead exhausted. It was so hard leaving my exchange family, but wonderful knowing that we would see each other again in a year, after having the best year of our lives yet.

(Hannah to Japan and I, just before leaving)

There will be a part two to this, most likely in my Wave Column. However, I will say this:

I am really ready and excited to start my new life in Denmark. My host families seem great, the small town over there has the nickname “redneck country”, and I already have plans to run a half marathon and drink coffee over there. I have a little over two weeks until I leave Minnesota for my family reunion, and after a week in Oregon, I am leaving from the Portland airport to Denmark. It is all going by so fast, but I couldn’t be more excited to where it is going.

 

Chicago in 30 Hours

I leave for Denmark in five weeks, and I have been fairly busy. Recently, I’ve been busy getting my wisdom teeth taken out, work, writing a lot, cleaning my room, making pins, and dealing with the emotional realization that everything will change very soon. My father has been quite busy as well, and within the chaos, we had to schedule a visit to Chicago to get my visa paperwork done.

Scheduling the visa visit is a nightmare within itself. The website wouldn’t let us schedule anytime in July, so we had to resort to June. So, my dad and I planned a trip to Chicago that would last about thirty hours. For most people, that would be way too little time, but not for me and my dad. Our approach to traveling is to go in all out tourist mode and to see everything, and it turns out that you can get to know Chicago very well in thirty hours.

My dad and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and drove all the way to the Minneapolis airport, which took over three times as long as the actual flight itself. After taking off, it took less than an hour to arrive in Chicago. Upon landing, we promptly got ourselves public transportation passes, which we used right away in an adventure getting to the University of Chicago.

This year, I applied to many colleges, one of them being the University of  Chicago. UChicago was my first choice, and though I fully expected to be rejected, I got the great honor of being waitlisted at a school that accepts less than eight percent of its applicants. Before this visit, I had never gotten the opportunity to visit UChicago, so there was no way that I was going to miss out on that this time.

Getting there was far from easy. My dad and I spent a sufficient amount of time wandering around the city looking for the correct train station, and after finding it and getting off, my dad and I found ourself in a sketchy neighborhood. Thankfully, two strangers explained to us how to get there, and after almost giving up we found ourselves in the prettiest college campus I have ever seen.

(See? It’s just like Hogwarts and covered with ivy. This is their chapel.)

Not long after, we worked our way up to Millennium Park to see the famous Bean and meet up with with my aunt who lives in Chicago. My Aunt Margaret easily made the trip way better by showing us around. After escaping the craziness that is the Bean, we headed to a coffee shop to relax for a little bit.

(It really was crazy.)

Here is my dad and me. One of us likes taking pictures, one of us does not.

After a delicious open sandwich and my first watermelon drink of the trip, we started walking around Chicago, and decided to go up the Sears/Willis tower. Yes, this is a very touristy thing to do, but it was easily worth it. The Willis tower is the second tallest building in the United States, and the view was nothing short of spectacular. I even managed to get a postcard type picture with my iPhone!

Our day doing touristy things wasn’t quite over yet. My aunt knew exactly which place to get the best deep dish pizza in Chicago, and we ended up going to one of the places founded by the inventor of deep dish pizza.

We ordered the classic pizza, which had a literal layer of sausage on it, a beautiful amount of cheese, and crust that was definitely worth the forty-five minute wait. After two pieces each, all of us were stuffed.

At that point, my dad and I were quite tired, so we headed over to our hostel. My dad and I decided against staying in a hotel and instead staying at the Chicago Getaway Hostel, which I am really glad we did. Not only was it more comfortable staying in a home-like place, but the people there we really friendly. The workers went out of their way to print off a form I needed for my visa in color, and were quite friendly. At the end I found out one of them was a former RYE student!

Since I was dead tired and by myself (my dad was tired to the point that he didn’t feel like socializing), I read the newspaper until I found someone to talk to. This place was full of mostly people in their twenties – they even had a self serve thing for beer – and it’s a little strange sitting in a youth hostel by yourself. I ended up talking to a doctor from India who is living in New Jersey, and that was really nice.

The next morning, we ended up striking a conversation with some people from Germany due to my dad asking them about their accent. Everyone we talked to was super nice and friendly, and it’s safe to say that I highly prefer hostels over hotels now.

When it comes down to it, my favorite part of traveling is meeting new people and getting in very long conversations with them. This happens to me a lot of places – at the coffee shop, at the hot tub at the district conference, and at yearbook camp. There are so many amazing people out there, and their stories are all unique. I don’t think this is the reason why I originally wanted to become an exchange student, but it’s definitely one of the main reasons why I want to now. I have so many wonderful people to meet yet.

The next morning, my dad and I experienced the quite the adventure getting to the place I needed to go to get my visa. We made the unfortunate decision of googling the address of the Danish consulate, and so we wandered around for quite a while trying to find that address. After going the wrong way for quite a while, we finally found it. It turns out that it was at the John Hancock building, and when we got there, we soon found out that tthat was not the place actually needed to be with fifteen minutes to go.

Well, we didn’t make it to that place on time, which turned out to no big deal. The guy in the waiting room helped everyone feel at ease, and it was fun talking with the other people applying for visas. I didn’t have any trouble because I brought all of my paperwork, and it turns out, a lot of the stuff I was told to bring I didn’t even need. It’s a huge relief knowing that that is working out, and I am very glad that it was mostly straightforward. Exchange students to Denmark, consider yourselves lucky. I’ve heard it’s not as easy for other countries.

The guy in the waiting room knew all of the good food places in Chicago, and so my dad and I got his advice on where to go. We ended up going to the oldest Italian restaurant in Chicago, which was nothing short of phenomenal. The whole setup was a bit surreal, and the prices were very affordable considering how high quality it was.

I ended up eating every last bite of my lasagna, determined not to waste a bit of the best lasagna I have ever had. Now, this wasn’t the smartest decision considering we were about to walk a lot around Chicago on a very hot day, but I don’t regret it. It’s not every day you get to eat at such a good restaurant.

Next stop was Lake Michigan. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

I met a family of ducks!!!!

After that, we headed back to the airport through public transportation (another adventure in itself) and then home. I have a lot more to say about Chicago, but I think I’ll save it for another post. This post already has way too much stuff in it for one post, just like the amount of stuff we did in Chicago in thirty hours.