October 9-11 was my Rotary District's conference for 2009 which was held in Åre, Sweden's nicest ski resort. The conference was for all the clubs and people involved in the district to get together and dicuse the projects and plans for this year. It was also the first time that all the exchange students in the district would get together. It was very exciting, only thing is that no one informed us students what our role there was going to be, what activities we would be doing, who was in charge and where we would be staying. All we knew was that Rotary would provide for us and we brought enough clothes for hiking up a mountain, swimming and playing in 40 cm. of snow.
Friday morning, I woke up early and got picked up at 6:30am. There were 3 rotarians, Jarryd and I in the car so it was a pretty squishy ride, with the 3 of us in the back, for the 5 hours until we got there. We got to the Holiday Club skiing resort hotel, the biggest building in Åre, which doubles or triples its population in the skiing season. There we met Rod, the American student who is staying in Åre this year, and even though he has helped out setting up for this conference all morning, we still don't know what we are doing. A little later we are joined by Julieta from Argentina, Tua who went to the States and Matts who went to South Africa. The 6 of us join in on the Rotary lunch and listen to the very boring guest speaker. The afternoon we spend hanging out, exploring the resort and playing cards. A train arrives and Judith from Germany, Emma from New Zealand and Kate from Australia join us.
After supper, we are in charge of games; mini golf, simulated golf and bowling, to get the rotarians to play. Afterwards, we get driven to a hostel (finally we know where we will be staying!). A rotarian owns the place and opened it for us because it usually doesn't open until the skiing season. I found a sauna in the basement and that was our night's activity.
Saturday, we went back to the resort for breakfast then hung around till we were told what to do. This turn out to be doing some advertising for the Rotary exchange program, by wearing our jackets and handing out brochures to other guests at the resort. Rotary had other displays set up as well; one for fighting Polio, auction items, the shelter box project, clean water in Africa, and the disabled person's ski cart. This last one is particularly interesting because the Rotary club at Åre, sponsors this ski cart which give quadriplegics and paraplegics the equal opportunity to ski with no extra cost.
In the afternoon, we helped out with the auction, bringing things up on to the stage to be auctioned off. When that was over, we finally got to do a fun activity and we ran to the resort's swimming pool before anyone else could tell us to help out with something! It was really nice, different pools connected by water paths surrounded by plants and bridges. there was a pool outside, a water slide and Sauna World which had several saunas, hot and cold pools, a snow room and a freezing water well to jump into. It was alot of fun.
That night we had a very fancy supper that went from 7pm to 11:30pm. There was a champain starter (we got bright turquoise coloured spite), a smoked salmon and salad appetizer, reindeer entree, ice cream then tea/coffee. There were guest speakers and presentations between each course and at one point all of us exchange students went on stage and Jarryd said thanks you for having us here and Emma sang the New Zealand National Anthem (she is very good). After dessert, a Swedish singer came and performed for us and we had our own little dance party in the back of the room. That night half of us went to bed while Jarryd, Rod, Kate and I stayed up late talking and hanging out in the sauna. I went to bed at quarter to 5 and was up all packed and ready to go by 9 the next morning.
Sunday, we hung out at the resort until we all had to leave. After lunch, Jarryd and I were back in the car heading home. It was a fantastic weekend even though there was no snow or mountain hiking!
October 9-11 was my Rotary District's conference for 2009 which was held in Åre, Sweden's nicest ski resort. The conference was for all the clubs and people involved in the district to get together and dicuse the projects and plans for this year. It was also the first time that all the exchange students in the district would get together. It was very exciting, only thing is that no one informed us students what our role there was going to be, what activities we would be doing, who was in charge and where we would be staying. All we knew was that Rotary would provide for us and we brought enough clothes for hiking up a mountain, swimming and playing in 40 cm. of snow.
Friday morning, I woke up early and got picked up at 6:30am. There were 3 rotarians, Jarryd and I in the car so it was a pretty squishy ride, with the 3 of us in the back, for the 5 hours until we got there. We got to the Holiday Club skiing resort hotel, the biggest building in Åre, which doubles or triples its population in the skiing season. There we met Rod, the American student who is staying in Åre this year, and even though he has helped out setting up for this conference all morning, we still don't know what we are doing. A little later we are joined by Julieta from Argentina, Tua who went to the States and Matts who went to South Africa. The 6 of us join in on the Rotary lunch and listen to the very boring guest speaker. The afternoon we spend hanging out, exploring the resort and playing cards. A train arrives and Judith from Germany, Emma from New Zealand and Kate from Australia join us.
After supper, we are in charge of games; mini golf, simulated golf and bowling, to get the rotarians to play. Afterwards, we get driven to a hostel (finally we know where we will be staying!). A rotarian owns the place and opened it for us because it usually doesn't open until the skiing season. I found a sauna in the basement and that was our night's activity.
Saturday, we went back to the resort for breakfast then hung around till we were told what to do. This turn out to be doing some advertising for the Rotary exchange program, by wearing our jackets and handing out brochures to other guests at the resort. Rotary had other displays set up as well; one for fighting Polio, auction items, the shelter box project, clean water in Africa, and the disabled person's ski cart. This last one is particularly interesting because the Rotary club at Åre, sponsors this ski cart which give quadriplegics and paraplegics the equal opportunity to ski with no extra cost.
In the afternoon, we helped out with the auction, bringing things up on to the stage to be auctioned off. When that was over, we finally got to do a fun activity and we ran to the resort's swimming pool before anyone else could tell us to help out with something! It was really nice, different pools connected by water paths surrounded by plants and bridges. there was a pool outside, a water slide and Sauna World which had several saunas, hot and cold pools, a snow room and a freezing water well to jump into. It was alot of fun.
That night we had a very fancy supper that went from 7pm to 11:30pm. There was a champain starter (we got bright turquoise coloured spite), a smoked salmon and salad appetizer, reindeer entree, ice cream then tea/coffee. There were guest speakers and presentations between each course and at one point all of us exchange students went on stage and Jarryd said thanks you for having us here and Emma sang the New Zealand National Anthem (she is very good). After dessert, a Swedish singer came and performed for us and we had our own little dance party in the back of the room. That night half of us went to bed while Jarryd, Rod, Kate and I stayed up late talking and hanging out in the sauna. I went to bed at quarter to 5 and was up all packed and ready to go by 9 the next morning.
Sunday, we hung out at the resort until we all had to leave. After lunch, Jarryd and I were back in the car heading home. It was a fantastic weekend even though there was no snow or mountain hiking!
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