Friday, September 21 Today was such a crazy day! Since I didn't go to school, I got to sleep in a little to go meet Valeria in the town at around 10:00am. I walked to the town wearing my blazer cause me and Valeria were gonna take photos with it. I've honestly never gotten stared at more in my entire life and eventually took it off haha. First me and Valeria went to the shopping center in the town to buy Valeria a new suitcase. We bought a small rolling one and went into the "walkway" around the shopping center and began transferring clothes to Valeria's new bag there. In the middle of doing so, Valeria's host mom walked right by and noticed us, just to started yelling (in a fun way) about how stupid we were haha! It was so funny. Then we went to go get crepes in an amazing pancake restaurant in town. We sat there eating and studying for the Slovak language exam that we would have the next morning with Rotary. After, we went around buying more clothes for Valeria and eventually back towards my house to pick up my stuff. We were running short on time so I had me and Valeria get on bus 2, a bus that runs more frequently but stops at a station a little further from home. While on the bus, it followed the same route right up until my usual stop when it took a different turn. I figured it might be going around, but NO, it went on the highway straight to some SMALL RANDOM VILLAGE that was so far from the center I couldn't even see the castle. The whole ride I was panicking knowing I'd just gotten lost for the first time. We got off at the first stop in the village, in some tiny road with a few houses. I had around 40 minutes to get home, get my stuff, then go back towards the center to my Rotary counselors house. It was impossible. I flagged down the closest woman I saw and began desperately trying to explain my situation in broken Slovak. She first referred me to the nearest bus stop to take me back to the center and I had Valeria RUN to it. With my luck, as soon as we walked to it, a bus towards town was pulling up. All in all, we were only about 30 minutes late and our counselor is too nice of a guy to even care. He gave us a quick house tour and introduced us to his daughter and her friend, and we headed off! It was me, Valeria, Pablo (other Brazilian boy in my city) and Ziga (my counselor) all in the car. The drive was about 2 hours and through the beautiful Czech countryside. We stopped to take a photo at the border crossing and headed straight to Kromeriz as we were soooo excited to finally meet all the other exchange students. We were a little early but we pulled in the same time as my friends from Brno, Ana (MI AMOR <3) and Aurelia!! I was sooo happy to finally meet them. The next two hours were the most exciting of my entire life (no joke haha). I was finally meeting all the exchange student's I'd talked to for months. We all hugged for so long, took photos, and exchanged candy from our countries. It was honestly so exciting and happy, I can never explain this feeling. We all got our rooms and then had dinner together to settle down. That night we had the opening ceremony and introduction to the exchange. We played tons of games and activities together before bed. It was so hard to go to sleep as I was so full of energy and just wanted to spend more time together. Saturday and Sunday, September 22-23 These next two days honestly went by so fast it's better to not separate them. We spent the two days either listening to presentations about our countries, rules or exchanges, along with playing lots of games in between. Saturday morning was our first Slovak language test, which Valeria and I both got first place in the district (thanks to the fact I speak Polish haha). We got food three times a day but were honestly so hungry in between. This was only a good thing cause most of us brought food from our countries that we all shared. My friends Joaquin and Julia (THANKS I LOVE YOU GUYS) brought me both food and gifts from their countries, and my friend Maddy brought me a worm on a string toy which I'd been wanting to have my whole exchange (THANKS MADDY I LOVE YOU). While we didn't get a whole lot of free time, we found time to be together and talk constantly. The highlight of the weekend was trading pins with all the exchange students and the city tour! For those of you who don't know, all exchange students have a pin to represent themselves. Every time we meet other exchange students, we trade pins with them and put all our collected pins on a Rotary blazer. I spent hours both nights putting new pins on my blazer, and now it's so full and heavy. The second thing I mentioned was the city tour. Our orientation was in Kromeriz, Czech Republic. It's such a beautiful Moravian city and we were lucky enough to visit it for a few hours. On the walk to the city center I stayed with all the Latino kids as we blasted reggaeton music in the street and sang and danced to it. We were so loud and having so much fun! So many people in the narrow city streets opened their windows to watch us parade around with our flags and music and waved hello to us. Most of the time in the square we spent trying to get in heart formation to take a photo. I cannot even describe how amazing it was to be there with so many people from all around the world. Leaving on Sunday was honestly DEPRESSING. A lot of us cried cause we wouldn't all be together until after the new year. We gave so many goodbyes, then headed off. On the way home, my Rotary counselor brought us to a very traditional Slovak restaurant along the border with another Mexican girl in Kosice and her Rotary counselors. We all tried different traditional Slovak foods and had a great time. Overall it was such an amazing weekend and I am so lucky to have such a big exchange student family with me. I LOVE YOU GUYS MORE THAN YOU KNOW.
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AuthorNick Bilotti Archives
March 2019
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