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Rotary Youth
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District 5190 ●
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Alexis Auckenthaler is spending her exchange year in Poland. To see some photos from Alexis's exchange click here. Date: Fri May 14, 2004 Hey Everybody! I just found out what city I will be going to, it is called, Czestochwa (chestova). It is a small town near Krakow and about 275 miles South West from Warsaw, the capital. I don't know anything about my host family yet, except for there names. I do not think they have e-mail, so I have to send them a letter, which I am probably going to do right now. I am so excited, I cannot wait! Czesc!
Date: Mon Jul 12, 2004 Hello! I am so entirely excited to be leaving! I cannot wait! Although I hardly know any of the language, I am still so excited. I just want to thank District 5190 for sponsoring everybody to do something so amazing. Without rotary, my dreams of traveling anywhere would have never of come true. I am truely thankful for your gratitude. I think I have already told everybody, but I am leaving August 24. I am so excited! Lets all keep in contact. Everybody have a safe and enjoyable trip! czesc!
Date: Wed Sep 1, 2004 Hello! Today was my first day of school. It was so different. I got there at 9:00 but school didn't start until 10:00. I was introduced to this girl Paulina, who is in my class. Then we went to an assembly and the principle talked for a while and called out everybody's names. It was long. Then we all went with our teachers to our classes. The schooling system works differently here; this was the first year of high school for everybody that was my age. and they have 2 more years. So, the teacher showed us around the whole school. We have this underground place where we learn about the Greeks or something and there was graffiti all over this part of the school. It looked really good though. I didn't understand a single word that the teacher said, but it is OK. After school, I had no idea were to go so a bunch of people helped my find a bus to take back to my village. We also stopped at a store and drank juice. When we were done with the bottles, we had to give them back because they recycle them. It was interesting. I love the people here they are so nice! I got to go! Do widzenia! Alexis
Date: Fri Oct 1, 2004 In Poland, a lot of people ask me about our President as well. People that have asked me have been all different ages. Most of the people that I have talked to have told me that they dislike the war but they don't know enough about Kerry or Bush to decide which person would be a better president. The only political thing that I have heard about Poland is that their president used to be skinny. There aren't very many politically inclined kids over here, which I was a little surprised at. I think that is a very interesting to see how the rest of the world would vote if they could. I did go to a inbound meeting and all of the kids hated Bush. I didn't find one person that liked him. Again, I didn't hear any reason for them to like Kerry more than Bush though. It seems that not a lot of people look at both sides of the campaign, which is very frustrating.
Date: Sun Oct 3, 2004 Dustin and Sarah, I just thought that I would share with you that I have also been stereotyped for being a U.S citizen. When I first got to Poland, a lot of people said something along the lines of "you are ruining our image of Americans because everybody in America is fat." I was a little offended, and at the time I was so shocked that they said that. Now, I just laugh about it, because I see so much of it. Alexis
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2004 Language. Sometimes I feel like that is something that I will never comprehend here. Polish is such a hard language! I am understanding more and more each day though. It is a bit of a relief. There are a lot of different ways to say one word in many different situations. Many words are conjugated but I haven't grasped the entire context of the different ways in which some words are conjugated. Everyday I can say that I have learned something new and remembered it the next day. That makes me happy. I like learning this language because it is a challenge. Alexis
Date: Sun Oct 10, 2004
Hello Everyone! I hope all is well with everyone. Today I did something very interesting. I saw a fox hunting competition. Let me explain what that is. There were tons of people riding horses to get the fox. Fox's are becoming extinct here in Poland, so instead of a fox, they use a person. The person, who won the event last year, puts a fox tail on their shoulder and everyone else chases that person to get the tail. The person has a "safe zone" where the horse can take a short rest and nobody can take the tail. It was very competitive. It was supposed to be fun and games, but some people took it a little too seriously this year. There were people falling off of their horses left and right. Luckily nobody go hurt. It was really exciting to watch though. So many people got so close to getting the fox, but the person with the tail was such a good rider that she just sped off ahead of them! It was really a lot of fun. One really bad thing did happen though. A horse almost died. The person with the fox tail was riding her horse so hard and immediately stopped, causing the blood in the horses body to not run properly. The muscles in the horses body were all cramped up and the horse just fell over. It was the scariest thing. 20 people immediately ran to the horse and threw blankets on it to get the blood pumping again and after a long time the horse got a shot and stood up which was a big relief. I don't know if the horse will be OK to ride again though. It hurt its foot pretty badly as well. After the fox hunt, we feasted. We feasted for four hours. And believe me feasting is not just one meal, it is plate after plate after plate. The food can last you a couple of days. It was good though! Anyways I just wanted to share with you something that I found extremely interesting and fun. I hope you enjoyed! Dad-Happy Birthday! I love you a lot!
Date: Tue Nov 2, 2004 Stephanie- Sounds like 'toussaint' is a really nice holiday. Here in Poland we as well do not dress up and go trick or treating. On November first we go to the cemetery and pry for the lost loved ones. It is a day to also think about your life and which path you want to choose. It was quite alright! What does everybody else do? Alexis
Date: Sat Nov 13, 2004
Czesc! I hope everybody is doing great! Lately, I have been riding horses as much as I can. We have a huge forest behind the castle that I live next to, and it is the perfect place to ride. Today, I learned how to make alcohol. We used cherries and a few raspberries. My family made the alcohol for the winter because they said it was perfect to keep you warm during the winter. The finished alcohol has the strongest smell. It gave me a headache it was so strong! As well as alcohol and horses, I am having a great time. The language is still tough, but it is getting better. I hope all is well with everyone. To everyone at home, I miss you and love you! Alexis Date: Sat Nov 27, 2004 Hello everybody, I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving in another country. In Poland, we have been protesting the Ukrainian elections. I don't know if any of you heard, but Ukraine just held their elections last week. The Prime Minister and pro-Russian unitest, Viktor Yanukovych, ran against the liberal challenger, Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko lost the election and proposed that the election was rigged. He also states that he has evidence to prove it. The people of Ukraine are in favor of Yushchenko because he wants to unite Ukraine with Europe and have Russia as a strategic partner. I happen to have a friend here in Poland from Ukraine. She is only here for about 4 months, and she is terrified of going home to an unstable government. At my school we protested (those that wanted to anyways) against Yanukovych. I think that it is really great that people in other Countries care so much about somebody else’s freedom and country. I hope that the people of other parts of Europe and the world can help Ukraine become satisfied with their government. Has anybody else encountered the Ukrainian election? Alexis
Date: Tues Dec 21, 2004 Hello Everybody! Alexis
Date: Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005 Hello Everyone! I am back in Poland! I just went on an 8 day trip with my school to visit some capitals in Europe. We started our trip Tuesday afternoon, drove all night, and ended up in Amsterdam in the morning. It was such a beautiful city. EVERYBODY has a bicycle there, it was nice. Everything is very modern and beautiful. We visited the Van Gough Museum which I recommend to everyone who goes to Amsterdam. Very inspirational. About 12 hours later, we drove down to Brussels where we only stayed for about 2 1/2 hours. We saw the famous "Peeing Boy", the center square, the parliament building, Karl Marx's house, and of course tasted the exhilarating chocolate. It was great. Then, we drove the rest of the night and ended up in Paris! We stayed at a hostel in Versailles. So, of course the first thing we did was visit the Versailles caslte and get lost in the huge garden! We saw the Eiffel Tower during the day and at night, we visited the Arc of Triumph, Museum d'Orsay, Champs Elysees, Louvre Museum, a famous cinema (forget the name), The modern Arc of Triumph, Pompidor Museum, Notre Dame, A Polish Church, the Pantheon of Paris, the University of Paris, Luxembourg park, and many more. It was amazing. I will never forget that trip. I learned so much. I think the best thing that I saw was the Louvre Museum and the Eiffel Tower at night. I also met so many great people from my school and made some good relationships. Overall, it was really a wonderful trip! I am thinking of you all and I hope that you are all doing well. I will see you in July! Alexis
Date: Friday, Feburary 4, 2005 Hello everyone, I am still having a great time in Poland. I have been doing some really cool things. As most of you know, I just got back from Paris, which I am still drooling over. On Tuesday and Wednesday, my German friend who lives in Krakow right now, came and visited me. I showed her the city and we had a very good time. Then, on Wednesday night I got invited by my friend to go skiing in the Polish mountains with his school. So, of course I agreed to go because would never miss an opportunity of skiing on account of I haven't been all year. So, we woke up really early, way too early, got in a bus, drove for 3 and a half hours and went skiing for 3 and a half hours. The snow was perfect. There were no chairlifts, but there were these things that would pull you up the hill. They were all over the mountain. It was strange, but it probably saved more energy. It was snowing the whole time, and there was so much fog, you could only see maybe 50 meters in front of you. Perfect conditions! I had the best day ever. We stayed out the whole time, considering we didn't really have very much time. The snow was absolutely incredible. A verity of terrain was blessed upon us and we had such a great time. I LOVE SKIING! Wow. I have been very jealous of everyone back home because I haven't been able to go skiing, but now I feel a little better! I hope all is well with very one, and to my Polish people, I definitely recommend going skiing in the Polish Mountains. Very different from the States, or Canada. Zakopane is modern, but the smaller ones, well, aren't so much. Talk to you all soon. Date: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Hey everybody, As some of you know already, I just got back from a ski trip to Italy. Italy is sooooo beautiful. The people are absolutely amazing. It was such a great experience. Unfortunately, the very first day, I was snowboarding (because I didn't have any ski's), I was on the flats and I caught my edge and broke my wrist. How unlucky. So, with not much else to do, I decided to hike all over he mountains. I was in the Marmalada mountain range. We stayed in a village called Pozza di Fassa. It was a tourist town, and everything closed at 10pm. It was different. The sun was shinning the whole time and I was in heaven! It was the greatest trip that I have ever been on because I was totally relaxed the whole time and met so many cool people. When I got home, I was getting ready to go to school, and my host sister woke up and invited me to go to Krakow with her. So, I packed up all of my stuff and got ready for a good time. We stayed in her apartment for 3 nights and had a really good time. I got to go to some of her art classes and see what that was all about. It was such a different atmosphere than what I expected, and I really liked it. I of course got to see all of the "cool" bars, restaurants and so on. My host sister is the most interesting person. I had an excellent time. Tomorrow I am going to switch into my 4th host family. I have already met them once, and they seemed very compatible. They also have a private yoga instructor come to their house which is a huge plus for me! There is also 2 boys, 13 and 16. The 16 year old goes to my school. He seems very nice. I am excited to be around new people, although I am really going to miss me family right now. I have made a really good relationship with all of the family members. I also started teaching an English class to people between the ages of 18 and 25. It is a really fun class. Other than that, I have been enjoying everything in life to the fullest. I hope everyone has a great Easter! Talk to you later! Alexis
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