Pins & Itinerary!

Hello all! 

Since my last post I have managed to make 150 pins using ribbon, glue, safety pins, and plastic red, white, and blue stars. I think they turned out pretty well (apart from my lousy cut job on most of the ends, haha) : 

I also have about 30 pins that I got from my district back at the March orientation, so in total I'll have about 180 pins to bring with me, which I'm hoping will be enough (I think it will; there are only about 150 other exchange students in Ecuador)! 

Also, I just got my itinerary today! I will be departing from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) at 9:35 a.m. on August 22 and arriving at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil (GYE) on August 22 at 10:20 p.m! Here is my itinerary:

Depart from Detroit at 9:35 a.m --> Arrive in Chicago at 9:50 a.m.

Depart from Chicago at 12:20 p.m. --> Arrive in Miami at 4:35 p.m.

Depart from Miami at 7:05 p.m. --> ARRIVE IN GUAYAQUIL AT 10:20 p.m!

It looks like it will be a long day of traveling (with little to no sleep the night before, of course) but I'm excited! I probably won't end up at my host family's house until at least a few hours after I arrive, because it will take a while to drive from Guayaquil also. :) 

Even though I don't think I will have anything specific to post about before I leave (which, by the way, is in 23 days!!!) I'm sure I'll post again about my excitement when it gets a little closer to my departure!

Until next time,

Stephanie

P.S. I just realized that there are an insane amount of exclamation points in this post due to my excitement, so please try to just read around them. :)

Ohio Erie Orientation, Visa, and Host Family Contact!

Hi Everyone!

I can't believe that it's already the 16th of July and there's only one month left until I leave! One month. I remember when I found out about Rotary right around this time last year and it seemed like I would never reach this point, but now I'm so close to leaving that it's finally starting to feel like reality rather than a dream. Just in the past four days I have received my visa, made contact with my host dad, and went to the final Ohio-Erie Otterbein Orientation in Ohio. Also, I (well, my dad) will probably be buying my plane ticket at the end of the week if everything goes as planned, so I'll know my exact departure date then!

I have a lot to say about these past few days, so I think I'll start with the orientation since I spent the majority of the weekend at it. The orientation officially started at 4:00 p.m. on Friday and ended at about 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, and those 42 hours were filled with the most fun that I have had in a long time. There were about 100 other exchange students there and everyone that I met was awesome! A lot was packed into each day, even throughout Sunday morning. Starting at 7:45 was the opening ceremony in the auditorium, which included the best speech/presentation that I have ever seen. It was by a girl who went on exchange to India around 5-10 years ago, and it was just incredibly inspirational and included just the right amount of humor, advice, etc. That lasted until 8:45, and then starting at 9:00 we were all split up according to the region that we are going to and we had a meeting with leaders called our "country contacts." There are about 10 other people going to South America (excluding Brazil, since there were so many students going to Brazil that they had their own meeting room) as well as one other person going to Ecuador. We all spent about an hour talking about cultural differences and country specific information. 

Then, from 10:00 to 12:15, we played a game called Bafa Bafa, which I think this was one of the funnest/funniest parts of the whole weekend. We were all split up into two groups, or cultures: the Alphas and the Betas, and went to separate rooms to learn the rules of the culture that we were placed in. I was in the Alpha culture, and Alphas are known as being loud, laughy, touchy, and very patriarchal. We then had to jump right into the Alphan culture and make sure to follow the rules that were were told about the Alphan culture. After a few practice rounds, small groups at a time were taken to the Beta room, while small groups of Betans were taken to the Alpha room, and each group had to figure out how to assimilate into the other, completely opposite culture. This was difficult to do, since when I went into the Betan room, I realized that they did not speak any English and I was not allowed to speak English to them. As a result, I had to sit and observe for awhile, which helped a little, but I was unable to completely pick up on what they were saying and doing. I think that this relates a lot to how it will be in the beginning of my exchange, except to a less extreme, since I won't really be able to communicate with anyone during the beginning. 

After Bafa Bafa, we all just talked for a little while before going to our dorms at around 1:30, and my friend Albena and I stayed up until around 4:00 just goofing around. We got up at 6:00 and then headed to the cafeteria for breakfast at about 7:15, realized that we were almost an hour too early, and just hung out until around 8:00 when we went back to the cafeteria. To be honest, I was not fond of the food for the entire weekend (except at the pizza party on Saturday night) so I mostly just forced myself to nibble at fruit and bread all weekend. After breakfast, there was another meeting in the auditorium about cultural differences, and I was really tired so I was kind of drifting off to sleep in that one and I don't really remember what happened, haha. After that, we had our second and last meeting with the country contacts, and this was one of my favorite meetings to go to because there were two rebounds that just came back from Ecuador and Peru who were talking about their experiences and answering all of our questions. That meeting lasted until around 11:45, and then we all went back to the cafeteria and I met up with my friends for lunch (which in my case was a little bit of bread and cheese with lemonade). After that there was another kind of boring meeting about student protection which mostly consisted of watching a video with some of the worst acting that I have ever seen, haha. As soon as that was over, though, the rest of the day was a blast! 

The talent show try-outs/sign-ups were next, and they were from 2:30-3:30, and everyone was required to participate. I was in a group with some of my friends and we signed up to do the macarena! We practiced and talked for awhile and then it was time to head back to the campus center at around 3:45 to play another game. This time it was a card game, and we all got into groups of six and were given a sheet of rules to study for five minutes before we began, and once we began, we were not allowed to talk at all. After each round, the two winners and two losers of each table would move to a different table to play with another group. It turned out that we were all given two different sets of rules, and this game was a test to see how we would react to the way that the other players' played the game since we weren't allowed to communicate with them, which also represents how it will be for us on our exchanges, with the silence being the language barrier. Next, at 5:00 we went outside and took a group photo which took about 10 minutes and we had the rest of the hour to relax until dinner at 6:00. Dinner lasted around an hour, and then we had 7:00-8:00 to do whatever we wanted as well, until 8:00 which was the talent show! The talent show was also one of the funnest parts of the weekend, and there were a lot of awesome talents as well as a lot of silly ones. My group was last to go, and we ended up having all of the exchange students coming on stage to do the macarena with us, which was a blast. The talent show lasted until 10:00, which is when we went to the lobby of one of the dorms to have a pizza party until 12:30. The pizza party was great, and I spent a lot of it with my friends listening to music, dancing, and just hanging out. Needless to say, I was beat after the pizza party, and I fell asleep pretty much right away.

The next morning, we woke up at around 7:30 and went to the cafeteria to have breakfast and our district meeting. That took around 2 hours, and then I said goodbye to my new friends and headed home. I had a really great time all weekend and met so many awesome people, and it got me even more excited for Ecuador and what these events will be like when I'm there. Speaking of Ecuador, I got an email back from my host dad on Thursday and he seems very nice! In it, he told me what a beautiful city Cuenca is and what an unforgettable year I'll have and that the family is excited to meet me! :) I sent him an email back when I got home on Sunday and asked a few questions, so hopefully I'll hear more from him again soon and I'll update when I do! 

Until next time,

Stephanie