Madison Breakfast Rotary - Rotary Youth Exchange

Ok, enough German. =] So, before I left I was planning on sending out a monthly e-mail...well, not going to lie, I'm lazy and didn't. So, I have some time on my hands, and decided to send out an e-mail.

Where to start...

The day before I left for Germany I went to 6 Flags Great America with my church. It was a perfect last day in the states. I had my mind off leaving, I was with my best friends, and I got to work on my tan some more. =] When I got home that night at 12:30am, my friend Aleesha was sitting on my couch becuase we hadn't gotten a chance to say good-bye.

The next morning my mom and my sisters drove me to the Madison Airport. My coordinator, Harry, came to say good-bye to Lauren (going to Germany), Amanda (going to Austria), and I. My dad met us there. About 20 minutes before I had to go through security my friends Katie, Kimmy, Josh, and Alex came running into the Airport. It was the hardest moment of my life to walk through security and on to the plane. But, I'm glad I did.

Lauren, Amanda, and I flew to Detroit, Michigan where we ate American food and drank Starbucks during our 4 hour layover. We met up with 5 other exchange students that were all going to Geramany: Kelsey (Northern WI), Karin (Illinois), Amber (Canada), and Ben and David (Michigan). Then we had a wonderful 10 hour flight to Frankfurt.

In Frankfurt I was greeted with a sign from my first host family. I have a mom (Monkia), dad (Joachim), and two brothers (Nico-18 and Marco-16). But Marco was leaving that Wednesday for a year in New Jersey. I spent two wonderful days with the Werners, but then had to pack up, once again, and left for a two week long language camp.

Language Camp = Best Two Weeks of my Life. It was so much fun. There were about 50 exchange students from around the world. We were at a place called Wasserkuppe, which was on top of a Mountain and used to be an old Nazi training camp. Those two weeks I went to a castle, a WWII museum, Fulda (a city near-by), hikes through the mountains and learned more Spanish than German. =] It was a sad day when we all had to say our good-byes but I was excited to actually start learning German and intergrate.

Two weeks later school started. I am in the 11 grade at the Ursulinen-Gymnasium, which is a private Catholic-Protestant school. I have made really good friends in my class and in the other classes. German schools are very different than American schools. I have different classes every day for different lengths of time, so I get out of school at a different time every day. If a teacher is sick, they don't call in a sub, you just don't have class. Its pretty awsome. And about every 3 weeks, we have Church for two hours and then we get to go home.

A week after school started my Rotary District took all of the Inbounds and all of the Rebounds to Loreley Rock for the weekend. Once again, they put us on top of a mountain. It was a really fun weekend. On saturday we sat through some meetings =P then went on a hike down the mountian, through the vally, and up the other side of the mountain. Thank God they drove us back to the hostel. I would have died. That night we went to a private party to watch fireworks over the Rhine. It was really beautiful. But, once again we had to leave.

Since then I have been doing other things with exchange students and my school friends. I have been to a Disco (club) called Laütstark in Mannheim, a kareokee party (me + german kareokee = very interesting), Frankfurt for the day to see the exchange students from the other district, and a girls night with some friends from school (which included home made Chinese food). Every week I have two dance courses. One is a Jazz course. My teacher is insane, but I love her to death. Her German is about as good as mine because she is from Brittain. I had my dance recitle a few weeks ago and it went really well. My other class is a ballroom dance course. I am learning every type of ballroom dance from Disco Fox to Tango to Waltz. Its verry fun (and my parnter is verrrrryyyyy good looking). =]

The first week of October I was in Berlin for 5 days with 23 other exchage students from my district. And it was soooo much fun. We did so many things. We saw the parliment building, went on a bus tour of the whole city, I tripped over a place where the Berlin wall used to be, went to a castle, shopping, Hard Rock Cafe, Checkpoint Charlie (the crossover from the American Section of Berlin to another), a Disco, and many more things. I fell in love with that city. I recommend everyone goes there. It is so amazing.

Two weeks ago I met up with 6 other exchange students from North America to celebrate Thanksgiving. We made the meal our selves (it only took us 7 hours and ended up eating at 10). But I do have to admit it tasted very good. Germans react very funny when you tell them that you eat Pumpkin Pie. They all ask, 'Why would you put pumpkin in a pie???' About half of them liked it and half didn't.

In two weeks I am going skiing in Italy for a week with Rotex and the exchange students from my District. And the two weeks after Christmas I am going skiing with my host family in Switzerland. I am also looking foward to the the Euro Tour in the Spring.

Vielen Dank Madison Breakfast Rotary.

Love always,

Leya

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I am probably staying with the same host family the whole year. My club had two set up for me, but my second family moved. I really like my host family, so I want to stay here. I will let you know if my address changes.

Familie Leschik-Werner

Gralsstr. 23

68199 Mannheim

Germany

Thank you so much for everything.

Leya

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