Foreign Exchange Adventures School Year 2008-09

This time we're looking at the 2008-09 school year.

Our group out here in Colorado is continuing to grow a little bit at a time.  We had more students here in our part of the Western Kansas group and I supervised 3 girls this year.  Jenny was here in Colorado Springs, (from Sweden), Marie stayed in Denver & was from Austria and Dani was from Venezuela and stayed in Conifer.  All the girls, as well as the rest of the kids here had a good year.

We started off our school year with our annual Kansas/Colorado rafting trip.  We average about 50 people per year on this trip and have a great time is had by all.  This is a great time for our students to get to know each other, (if they haven't already met); often, these kids were at language camp, so it's a great time to hang out and compare great host families.  This trip is a full day on the water in the Brown's Canyon area near Buena Vista, Colorado...that's pronounced Bue Na Vista, LOOONG U there.  The story is that the person who named it didn't like the Spanish...or something like that.

For my part, I decided not to host this year.  The biggest reason I didn't host was because I had the pleasure of spending 3 weeks in Europe in September.  This is one of the Greatest things about being a host family or in my case, a host Dad.  Since I hosted David & Mattia last school year, I had an opportunity to spend 1 1/2 weeks in Spain to start off.  David and family live a bit outside of Madrid. Luckily, the flight to Madrid was uneventful, if a bit on the long side.  It was great to see David again, as well as Juan and Chus.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to meet Natalia, David's sister, but that was because she was in North Dakota for a semester.  I had great tour guides and I spent several days doing a bit of shopping and taking in El Prado Museo.  It was pretty amazing.  I think it's been a long time since I've been in a museum and was very impressed.  Of course, I got the biggest chuckle out of Juan, when he explained why the portraits of the "royal men" looked a touch less "manly" it was because of (a tiny little bit of) inbreeding...reminds me of an old Robin Williams bit about Prince Charles' ears...anyway.  As fun as the museum was, the highlight of the Spain leg of the trip was the 2 days we spent in Rioja.  That ROCKED!!!  We did wine tastings, had amazing food, visited some of the coolest old castles and bodegas and wineries in the area.

I also spent 1 1/2 weeks in Italy with Mattia & his famiglia; his parents Anna & Paolo and his brother Jacopo.  Of course, it was great to see Mattia again & meet everyone else.  Mattia's family lives outside of Rome in a cool quiet little neighborhood.  I got a chance to see SO much history.  It was pretty amazing to stand in one place and see actual layers of history.  I went to the Colosseum,  the Pantheon & the Vatican Museo.  I have to admit, I was slightly apprehensive about hanging out near the Vatican, but the Museo was unbelievable.  The sheer amount of historic pieces was mind boggling.  The final "exhibit" was the Sistine Chapel.  I was actually speechless.  I thought, "Oh My God" and then thought that was a little odd...The pictures and stories and what you may have heard just don't prepare you for the real thing.  It was so much more than I expected.  I should step back for a second and admit that I'm a dork, (I know...anyone who knows me already knew that), after spending over a week with David's family & listening to lots and lots of Spanish, apparently, some of it sunk in.  Mattia asked me a question and I thought I'd be "cool" and answer him in Italian.  Nice thought, however, I answered in Spanish.  He was so disappointed...  I guess, if there's a good thing here, it was that after spending a week and a half listening to and learning Italian, I did the exact same thing, (in opposite), when I answered David in Italian.  Double Duh.

While I was in Spain, I received an interesting email from my counterpart/sister Lori.  I think her words were "EF is going to ask you something when you get back...Please say yes."  Well, they did & so did I.  I accepted the position as RC in Colorado.  Also, as things tend to happen, there was a meltdown for a host family & student I was supervising.  I HATE when that happens.  Don't worry, things worked out.  It was a learned experience for all and I have definitely gotten some insights from the ordeal.

Since Marie was only here for 1 semester, we took the girls shopping in December.  OK, they shopped, I wondered around, I guess kinda like a Dad...trying to keep up with a bunch of teenage girls is pointless, so I threw in the towel early.  By all accounts, the girls had a good time & they did their part to try to help the US economy.  Also, just before Marie left, I was able to meet she & her Mother for lunch here in Colorado Springs.  Again, very cool stuff.

After accepting the RC (that's Regional Coordinator) position things got very busy, very quickly.  Luckily, we were able to "hang on to" Tim, Nikki, Mike and Deb and they have been tremendous assets.  One of the things we did was to rename our team.  I'm not a big fan of naming the group out here, Team Finkbeiner or Team Joey for that matter, so we went with United Colorado.

This year was the beginning of our United Colorado team meetings.  This year, we had a Spring meeting in Breckenridge.  It was rather small, but very informative for all and the first shot at creating a good team that works together!

We wrapped up another year and were working on placing students for the next school year.  When the system works, we are working nearly year round to find great host families for our nearly 3000 students. In fact, during this time, I had already decided on the students I would host.  I will gladly recount that on the next blog.

Foreign Exchange Adventures School Year 2007-08

This posting will be for the 2007-08 school year.

The placement season for the 07-08 school year actually started in February or so, but we'll jump ahead to about June 2007.  The previous year's students have returned home and we're working on things for the upcoming school year.

Our group out here continues to grow a little bit at a time and we ended up placing 6 students in the Colorado portion of Team Wade.  Of those 6, I hosted 2 young men and another IEC in Manitou Springs; Melissa hosted a young lady.

Melissa hosted Isabella from Sweden.  By all accounts, these two ladies had a wonderful year together.  Melissa was nice enough to open her home to this young lady and I think they both learned a tremendous amount about one another and about themselves too.  During this year I supervised Melissa & Isabella and she supervised my boys and I.  We got to hang out from time to time and shared a few dinners over the course of the year and I consider Melissa to be a very good friend, unfortunately, with schedules being what they are, we just don't get to see each other much.

For my part, I hosted two amazing young men.  Mattia is from Italy, (Roma) and David is from Spain (Madrid).  As this was my first real opportunity to be a parent, on my own, I had HUGE amounts to learn.  Oh sure, I was somewhat of a Dad for awhile, when I was married, but that was for a short time & when things got tough, well things just got taken care of I guess.

So, back to the school year.  Originally, I had only planned to host Mattia, since he was a 1/2 year student.  You know, I thought it would be a good way of "trying out" the program.  Mattia's Momma actually emailed me and asked me some really great questions; the best one was if I would consider hosting
2  students instead of just one.  After considering everything, (for about 34 seconds), I decided it would be a good thing to host 2 boys.  It was a Wonderful thing! 

Mattia & David actually arrived within an hour of each other.  We stuffed their bags into the little bitty Saturn and ran them home to drop off the bags and then we went for some grub.  During dinner, we went through  the house rules and began getting our family in order. Since the guys got here about a week and a half before school started, we got them registered and then head out for a few days to "discover" Colorado.

The boys and I took part in the annual Kansas/Colorado rafting trip along with Franzie and Dani F.  This trip is always a blast because we share it with our friends from Kansas.  On average we have about 50 students, family members and IECs that attend.  It's great because we pretty much get the whole river to ourselves.  When we go we do a full day rafting with lunch on the beach.  Great pictures, too.  Very Cool stuff!


We decided to start a new family tradition this year and we decide to get our photos "professionally" done.  All in all they turned out well, but it's tough to pay a pretty good amount of money & then think "I could have done that or better".  The guys look great and I, well, I look kinda like a Dad.  ;)

In October, the boys and I took a trip to California.  Since this was after both boys had acquired their driver's permits we decided to rent a Mustang convertible!  As far as you know, the boys did not drive the car... ;)   We took time out to spend a few days on the coast, visited a wine tasting room - that would be Bonny Doon, we hung out at the beach, had great food, spent some time in San Francisco, rented a H3, took in some sun and relaxed...

Our next big thing was a visit from David's parents- Juan Luis & Chus.  It was great to meet them and they had a good time doing the touristy stuff in Colorado.  While they were here they cooked for us, we cooked for them and we had dinner out.  What a Great visit! Of course, the adults found a common ground in wine appreciation. 

The boys took a ski trip to Winter Park.  I've heard the skiing was pretty good, however since I don't ski, I was just the driver.  As luck would have it, the snow started and snowed and snowed and snowed.  I SO hate driving in a blizzard, it's just No fun.

We also took a ski trip to Breckenridge in December with Melissa, Isabella and a few other girls in the area.  Again, the boys had fun, but of course, the snow started up and made travel rather unpleasant.  Yes, yes, I know, I know...it's Colorado, you're in the mountains at a ski area...DUH!  Of Course there's a snow storm!


I did something that I shouldn't have allowed, but I was able to plead ignorance, (that time), I let David go home for the holidays and didn't have his paperwork signed correctly.  See, it's not really that EF wants to be the bad guy, but it's IS the state department rule that since the students are here on a student visa, they can leave the country when ever they like, but coming back into the country is the issue.  The DS2019 needs to be updated.  Anyway, lesson learned.  Luckily David got back into the country with no issues.

Since David was in Spain for the Holidays and Mattia was only here for the first semester, the Holidays were set to be rather boring, but I got a surprise.  Mattia decided he would wait to go back to Italy until after the first of the year.  What a very cool and mature thing to do.  As he said, he wanted to spend the time with his friends, but didn't want me to be alone.  Very nice.  Mattia left on his way back to Italy the day before David got back from Spain.

It was hard to say good bye to Mattia, but as he said, "It's OK, I'll see  you in September"  That my friends is another benefit of being involved in this program, but we'll talk about that later.  Big hugs to my Italian Son.

As I said, David returned  from Spain just after Mattia left and we were off and running for the second semester.  My work was extremely busy and David was working on his Spanish school work as well as classes here at Wasson High.  Luckily, I suppose, school here in the US is generally easier than elsewhere.

Time really flew by and then all of a sudden, it was time for our regional meeting in San Antonio.  David & I got a chance to spend some good quality time together and while I was in meetings, David hung out with other students that came along and had a good time there as well.

The rest of the school year went by very quickly.  David finished up the year with flying colors and then it was over... ;(  It was tough to let David head off as well, but again, with reassurances the I would see David in September, & a hug, I let him go.

I learned a tremendous amount from both boys and learned even more about myself.  Grazie & Gracias to Mattia & David for allowing me to learn so much and to become Totally hooked on foreign exchange and being a host Dad!

Cheers!

Foreign Exchange Adventures School Year 2006-07

This story begins in 2006.

I first became involved with foreign exchange through EF Foundation for Foreign Study shortly after I was asked to join my former employer's Community Outreach Committee.  I was looking for something "fun" for the committee to do and while this didn't really fit into that committee's plan it DID seem fun.

I filled out the application and then, next thing I know, I'm sitting down with a gal named Erin for an in-home interview.  While I wasn't exactly in the place to become a host parent, I was brought on as an IEC, (International Exchange Coordinator).  The first "season", I didn't place any students of my own, but was asked to take over the Denver area when another coordinator decided to step down.

Let me take a step back and give a rundown of a bit of the terminology.  Just like any corporation or organization, EF has loads of abbreviations and special terminology.  So, Season or Placement Season refers to the time from about January to August, when we are looking for great host families to match with great students.  To Place or Placement means the process of matching up the student with the host family.  Host family is the family that agrees to open their home and their hearts to a foreign exchange student for a high school year.  

So, my first year, I supervised 6 young ladies in the Denver area.  We had ladies from Germany, New Zealand, Sweden and Denmark.  As the Christmas season rolled around, I decided to take a trip to Denver, pick everyone up and hang out.  We spent the afternoon at the museum and then went to have dinner,  OK, so a trip to the museum was "OK", but note to self, shopping would have been better...for them.  :)

I went around to each of the host families, met them and of course, thanked them for opening their homes and hearts.  After I gathered up all 6 girls we were off.  This was sadly the first time that most of them had met.  They all got along quite well and of course spent a good deal of time talking and talking and talking and...

After our adventure at the museum, we went out for pizza.  THAT was interesting AND Fun.  I swear the young man behind the counter couldn't take his eyes off the girls, of course, he also couldn't quite figure out what the heck I was doing with 6 girls with accents.  It was a good meal and great conversation.  From that point forward, our monthly conversation became much more animated as I had learned a great deal from and about them all.

Fast forward to sometime in May of 2007 and we're getting ready to wrap up the school year.  I took the girls to the Denver Zoo this time.  This was a better choice than the museum, mostly because the animals are "cute".  We also got together for another meal and had Great conversation again. 

This year was one of lots of lessons learned, great conversations with some very cool ladies and the chance to meet some very nice host families.  I also started working on increasing the size of the team out here and at this time was named "Team Lead" of the Colorado portion of Team Wade.  At least that's how I recall it, I could have the "dates" wrong, but what the heck, I've slept since then and I forget stuff.

Next we'll delve into the 2007-08 school year.  Yes, I know it seems odd, but since we're talking about exchange students who are here for a semester or school year, everything here is based on a school year.