Winter Orientation & Country Selection

Starting with a chartered bus from Anchorage's airport, which I happen to live very close to, our group of Rotary students went to Wasilla to a sports complex to hold a 4 day orientation. The outbounds learn about going on exchange and get to find out their exchange country, the inbounds help the outbounds learn about their country and the rebounds are there to help everyone out. I got Chile! And my friend, Allison, got Mexico! Now we are planning on learning Spanish together before we leave in the fall. You can see the videos of our orientation banquet on the Rotary 5010 Youth Exchange's Facebook page. Click here: 5010 Facebook.

Here's the only journal I wrote about the first day of Orientation, before they took our phones away:

Day 1 of Orientation

Thursday after school, on January 17th, I headed home and got all of my stuff, ate and headed out as fast as I could. I got to the Anchorage airport and waited in line to put my stuff under the bus with my dad. Then, I hugged him goodbye and got on the bus with Allison. We sat in the middle of the bus and started to realize how many exchange students were in the area. The bus was packed full and there was barely even one seat left. As we started on our drive to Wasilla, we realized how tired we already were and it was only 4:30. Across from us was a Rotex, named Connor; he spent his year in South Africa. I recognized him from the Rotary photos. We took a nice, long stop in Eagle River, then continued with our drive again. Finally, after an hour and a half drive, we made it to the Menard Sports Center. It instantly wasn’t what I had expected. The turf area was separated into 3 areas. We started by setting our stuff down in the far section of the turf. Then right after that, we got our rotary t-shirts. There was green for outbounds, red for inbounds and grey for rebounds. We then got dinner. I can’t even explain how happy I was with the food...it was soooo good. It was catered by Qdoba, which is the Chipotle of Alaska. I got a lot of meat and chips, cheese and rice. Allison and I sat down at a table with Jonah, Oliver, a girl from Bolivia and a girl from Argentina. I really liked them both. I told the girl from Bolivia that I think I will be sent there for my exchange. She said that if I am, that she will be my best friend and take me to all of the parties. There was also lemonade served and it tasted like it was made with hose water. Then Timi started talking for a long time about goals and how to make and achieve them. Then, we did activities to meet everyone. Everyone was very nice but it was kinda awkward. We also played musical chairs and frog detective. After that, was break and Allison and I were so tired and it has only been half of a day. Allison and I just wanted to go to bed, so we set up, changed, and just sat and talked on our sleeping bags waiting for lights out. Finally at 11:30, we were able to go to sleep.