Poland Service Project

My next trip was to Poland on a Service Project with Club Beyond. There a bunch of Club Beyond groups from all over Europe came together to help out the Polish in various projects. Bitburg's assignment was to build benches and double bass stands for a small music school right around Katowice. I've never had so much fun doing work in my life!!




Here I am on the first day outside of the club building making a "wow" face. Well, the sign looks like it says WoW from far away, but it really is WDW... oh well, it was still funny!This is my small group and leader. They were a wonderful bunch of girls and I love them to death, we made very strong, lasting friendships in that very short week!

We even had our little own dance :P

Here we are having some fun in the city on a special tour from the 11th class students of the music school:We never knew this, but I guess posing in front of mannequins at the mall is a very American thing to do. We found this out when we tried to get our Polish friends to pose with us, their reply was "Polish don't do that"

Three billy goats gruff!

The tour of the city was really special because we were the only group who got to go :D

We were able to see what Polish life really was outside of the music school. The city was very old and very beautiful. We could, however, see how much World War II had destroyed the place and how it is still effecting people to this day. Most fo the building were very run down from poverty and some ruined and abandoned. Away from the older buildings, you could see how they were trying to rebuild. Most of the land was empty lots but in random spots gas stations and stores and churches were built. They even had a mall as you saw earlier. You should have seen how excited they were when we mentioned that the mall was just like the ones in America!

The Catholic group coming back from church.

Before the actual work started, our Youth Leader took us to Auschwitz, the biggest of Hitler's concentration camps. He said, "I hope this will remind us all of why we need to value ourselves and others. When we forget Genesis 1:27 ("So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.") we are doomed to devalue those around us and become capable of destroying lives. May we never forget."

Dale was a wonderful speaker, his insight helped us to open up our eyes to our own dignity and the dignity of others. In the words of my small group leader, we were blessed to have him with us that week.

The next day, began work. Here's our group climbing up the hill to the park where we were to build the benches, the music school is the buildings to the left. Here's my group digging holes for the posts of the benches.

While digging we found a bunch of obstructions, mostly rocks, but also lots of debree like wire and cement, we even found the knob for a 1940's oven.

Us four girls were working all alone at the bottom of the hill. Some of the obstructions were very hard to remove and required the help of one of the boys who were all working up the hill.

Lifting bags of cement to fill up the holes and hold up the posts of the benches. Mixing the cement was the Polish kids second favorite part to watch; their first favorite was laughing while we attempted to dig holes :P That was our favorite part too.

Don't get me wrong, we could tell that the kids at the school were genuinely excited for us to be there and grateful to know that we cared. I was actually wrong, their favorite part seemed to be when we would talk to them and share our lifestyles while learning about theirs.

One of the other things we did as part of the service project was getting to know the Polish kids by interacting with the kids our age and helping the younger ones with their English.

This is me with a few girls from the 11th class. I answered all sorts of questions about american sports and past times, about the classes we take and they were very excited to learn more about prom!

The girls loved how tall Deion is!

Every once in a while we would take a break from the hard work and start crafting our message box for our group and writing notes to the other groups at the work site.

The notes were meant to encourage the other members of the service project. It was a fun way to get to know eachother. It was always fun to get a note from someone, sometimes they made you laugh and sometimes they were very sweet.

Here's my group painting the finished benches.

With the work almost done, each group had a turn to have some quiet time to finish their devotionals.

Lauren having some fun painting benches!

Up next is more pictures of us interacting with the Polish:

Here are some friends I made while teaching them how to play baseball and basketball! They were very excited on the last day when I gave them the bats and balls :)Here are the music students gathered around DG as he played his guitar and sang. As you can see most of the kids around him were girls :P

The boys liked talking with him though and enjoyed trying to learn the songs on his guitar. Remember, all these kids are already amazing musicians!

I didn't get to go, but Lauren, Libby and Kelsey weretaken by one of their Polish friends to hear and concert from the stars of the music school. It turns out the trumbone players are like the "jocks", these guys are being "scouted" by colleges around the world!

Our last day was a Saturday. Here we all our with some of our Polish friends who decided to come see us for the last time instead of going home for the weekend. This was a really special, but very sad day. None of us wanted to leave, me least of all, I wanted to stay and go to school here to play my violin all day like they get to! :(((

Lastly, I'd like to give a very big thank you out to everyone who donated money to Lauren and I. Without you guys, we would have never have gotten to have this wonderful experience!!

Creative Connections

I know its really overdue, but here's a blog about my experience at Creative Connections!

It started when we rode the bus up what seemed like a never-ending hill. It was so peaceful on the mountain side, it was like a whole other world. Jasmine, an amazing artist who went for the drawing class, and I were roomates who got to be in an awesome room in the basement.

Everyday we would go to our groups. I was in the Strings group, I was really nervous at first but it turned out to really fun!! Even though the tips of my fingers began to bruise, it was aazing to get to play my violin for hours at a time. And getting to play with other muscians in an orchestra was a wonderful experience!

We played a beautiful performance piece called "American Journey" plus, during practice time, 50 sight-reading pieces. My violin instructor was amazed at how loose my fingers were when I got back home!

One of the coolest parts was hanging out with other artists. Jasmine, Andre (amazing with computer art!) and I got to meet some many people who are as weird as we are! In the Rec Room we could play pool and ping-pong and we could go hang out in the Cafe. But the best part was just walking around and hearing the music played by the performing arts section and seeing the beautiful works of art by the visual arts section.

THIMUN

THIMUN - The Hague International Model United Nations

This was one of the most fun experiences of my life! I was one of the few who thought the debates were interesting plus we had an awesome hotel, I met some really cool people, the shopping was great and the dance at the end was rockin'!

I forgot to bring a camera but I will share some of my friends pictures:

This was my committee, ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) It was amazing to see all the different nationalities there. I met kids from all sorts of places from Ireland and Turkey to Kenya and India.

This was the delegate representing Saudi Arabia explaining how in his "country" they believe the words "women" and "efficient" should never be in the same sentence. (ou could hear every girl in the room gasp when he said that. Oh, its a pretty funny story, you should ask me about it sometime.

Here are our most honorable Chairs (or as one delegate put it in his speech, "most comfortable Chairs" :P) They didn't smile very much...

This was the closing ceremony. I didn't get to go, but I heard it was pretty amazing.

This trip makes me want to be a junior so I can go again next year! But, just the other day my history teacher mentioned that her daughter who is in college still goes to MUN conferences. Maybe there is still hope!!

Anyway, overall, the best part was being there with my really great friends who made it twice as much fun! Now, its time to get ready for Creative Connections on Sunday. I'm sad to say my preparations aren't looking so good... but it should all go well (I wish Christina and Amy were coming with me! *cries*)

Music, Orphans and the United Nations

Birdy is at it again. Now that I am in school many opportunities are floating around, just waiting for me to grab hold. Because of Birdy's artistic and musical abilities, enthusiasm to help and willingness to brave public speaking, three week-long trips have come up.

The first will be the trip to the Hague (in the Netherlands) for Model United Nations. My MUN class will travel there at the end of this semester to a beautiful 4 star hotel on the beach. The only thing is we have to come up with the money for everything because the school will not pay for us to go. We done a few fund raisers to help lower the cost but I still had to pay about 360 euro for the hotel room.

However, I'm sure the money will be worth it. MUN is a simulation of the UN run entirely by high school students. I am in the ECOSOC committee which stands for Economic and Social Council. My class's country was given to us in the beginning of the year and unfortunately happens to be the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea. So in my committee I will be representing North Korea in all of the Economic and Social resolutions that come up.

The next trip will be to Oberwesel, Germany to participate in Creative Connections. I was chosen to be one of the 15 students to be in the Strings class. It will only be 200 euro to spend 5 days in an advanced arts activity with other musicians as well as 135 other artists. We will, then, perform or showcase what we have prepared during the week. This is a great opportunity that will help take my violin to the next level.

In April, I've signed up for a Service Project to Poland. This will cost $365 but will be so much fun and very fulfilling. We will help an orphanage there by building a playground, teaching children baseball and cooking meals, among other things. Lauren and I can't wait!

All this, plus graduation and college, is coming up soon but not coming cheap. However, these are wonderful opportunities I feel like I cannot miss!

My Journal: Switzerland

During our trip to the Swiss Alps, I kept a little notebook to write down the things I did. I'll write down the best parts for you. It started with a ride at the front of a double decker bus:

Day 1

"The green wild hills unrolled like a handmade quilt. The chattering of small children was droned by the rattling of the windows as the road rolled under the two decker bus. Thus, begins my trip to Switzerland.

Sitting at the very front of the top deck of the bus was like being on a wooden roller coaster. The road rushed beneath making it seem as if it was going very fast. The whole bus rattled and shook jostling us into each other. Going up hills drastically slowed the bus while going down you would wonder if the driver could ever stop the momentum."

Day 2

"The town is wonderful. Not only is the ground covered in snow but the houses, shops and hotels are so quaint and whimsical, it's exactly how you would imagine Switzerland to be. We are in a town called Zermatt settled sweetly in a valley. Mountains are on every side including the famous Matternhorn. One thing that we found odd is that there are old crude wooden cabins and barns scattered throughout the village. They look like they would be very cold, especially the ones alone in the middle of the snow.

We got to our apartment late last night, so I woke up to the most amazing sight of my life. Majestic snow-tipped mountains against a vivid blue sky surrounded me. All the houses were covered with snow at least a foot deep. It had snowed for a few days back in Germany. All the farmland around our area was lightly covered with snow; I kept saying how that was the most snow I had ever seen. But, now the snow absolutely amazes me. This is nothing like the German slush I'm used to; this beautiful powdery Swiss snow perfect for skiing.

Skiing is hard work. We woke up early in the morning to eat breakfast then picked up our skis and boots from the hotel. Now, one would expect that skis would be light, but in fact they are very heavy. And hard to carry. It took at least twenty minutes for us to lug all our stuff up to the lift. When we finally got there we had to put on our boots on which we found to be quite challenging. Then, getting on the ski lift was crazy, especially with mom and my little sisters. But, after we finally hopped onto the gondola; the view was spectacular. You could see the town nestled in the snow, almost camouflage, and it was also neat to see the little animal footprints below us. We tried to figure out what kind of animal made what print but there were so many different kinds.

After we got off the gondola we had two choices, we could go ski to Italy or take another larger gondola to the lodge on the very peak of the mountain. Though Italy would have been awesome, we needed a little practice first. The new gondola was very big and stuffed with people, we were squished up against the windows. I found it amazing, how that big thing, so crammed with people, could be lifted up the entire mountain by two wires. While we were on the gondola, we were able to see the source of three sets of footprints in the snow. Three black and white mountain goats dared the cliffs below us. I know what stuffed animal I'll get here as a souvenir!

Today was the perfect day for skiing;

the snow was packed, but not icy, the sun was out, and the air was crisp, but not windy. It was a great idea to get an instructor, because skiing is no simple task. Lauren picked it up really quick, but I had troubles keeping my knees straight. Though, we were all doing well at the end of the lesson. I didn't fall until the day was almost over, when I braved the Bunny Slope. (The first slope we were on was so easy I called it the Chicken Slope.)

The Bunny Slope was really fun because it was long enough to actually enjoy the ride down. The moving rope you had to hold onto in order to get back up, however, was frustrating. It was hard to get a grip of it; its burned holes in you gloves; it was hard to keep the skis straight; in some parts there was too much slack which made you wipe out and it took an amazing amount of upper body strength, not good for us ladies.

Anyway, after we had our fill of going up and down the mountain side, we had to climb up the Chicken Slope. It was steeper than we thought. I never want to climb anything like that mountain again."

Day 4

"The next two days we hung out at the slopes. It was really fun and of course we still had to climb up the Chicken Slope which I vowed never to do again; on the bright side, it was the best workout I've ever had in my life. I wanted to go up the big slope, the Lion Slope, the Monster Slope, the Slope of the Howling Wolves. (definite over exaggerations) But, I knew that, with my lack of experience, the long hill would be very tiring. Not only that, but I would be falling down every 10 seconds.

After skiing for a couple hours on Saturday, Lauren and I took a walk around Zermatt each with 20 francs from mom.

It really is the cutest town! Sand is poured on the streets to keep it from icing. There are no cars in sight except for and few electric taxis and pick-up trucks; gas cars aren't even allowed in the town. Despite the many tourists, everything is very authentic like it had been there for centuries. Most of the houses and hotels are large wood cabins, each beautifully carved, painted and decorated.

Since the Matterhorn is such a big tourist attraction, everything is Zermatt is expensive. We were only able to buy a few things. But, we needed to spend all of our left-over francs, so we got a few small souvenirs as well as a stuffed animal goat, St. Bernard and marmot (which is a very popualr animal in mountain villages) and some Swiss chocolate."

Day 5

"Sunday is our last day. After some last minute shopping, we got on the train and 10:20 and from the train we got back onto the bus. This time, we get to drive through Switzerland in the daylight. The scenery is amazing. Mountains loom over us on all sides everywhere we turn. This is what I thought Germany would look like whne we moved here, but we live in the country, full of rolling hills but very lacking in mountains.

Soon the snow-capped mountains began to shrink into hills. They are the biggest, greenest hills you will ever see. The bus has gone through so many tunnels under the hills that I wonder how they manage to stay up. Jurni, Kitty's friend, just described this place as 'Narnia'.

Our trip to Switzerland was awesome, thats the only word I can think of to describe it. Skiing was more fun than I imagined it to be and the town nad apartment we stayed in was wonderfully whimsical. Overall, it was a very exiting trip that I'm definitly going to go on again. Now, its time to go someplace opposite of the Alps such as... the Bahamas!