This is long long long overdue, and I'm so very sorry about it.
You could say I've had a very busy last 3 weeks? last month? (oops)
Let's just say I've seen a "bit" of Europe since the last time I wrote to you. I'll start from the beginning I guess.
Sweden:
Three weekends ago(?) I traveled to Sweden with three other exchange students living in Latvia and Guna, the person responsible for us. The other three exchange students are all wonderful people two girls from the US; Katie from Illinois, and Anne from Missouri. (representing the midwest for sure) Then the last member of our party would be Felix a very nice boy from Germany. We all met in Riga (the capital of Latvia) and flew from there to Stockholm, it took just over an hour. Once in Stockholm we had a little over an hour and a half bus ride to Soderkoping, which would be our final destination. Atfirst the bus pulled us into a campground (at the time none of knew where we would be staying), all you could here from the back of the bus was gasps of, "No way," and "you've got to be kidding me!?" Well the joke was on us I guess, we had in fact pulled into the wrong place...Our actual home for the weekend would be a youth hostel down the road.
Now the word hostel might provoke images of dirty rooms where things are falling to pieces with total shady characters renting out the rooms around you...but to put aside your fears European hostels are actually very nice and this one was completely rented out to the Rotary. When we arrived we were greeted by the head of the Swedish district we share, Jaun Eric, we found out then that we had the hostel to ourselves that night because the Swedish kids wouldn't meet up with us until the following day at lunch. After explaining to him that we were virtually dieing of hunger (okay not dieing but we could cry wolf a little bit), he offered to go out and buy us Chinese. So that was dinner and my first Swedish experience, "Swedish Chinese", need I say more?
The next day at lunch we met up with the 21 other rotary kids, who were all as hungry to speak some fast English as we were. The group was made up of mostly Americans and Australians, do you know how nice it is to not worry about using the wrong words which could lead you to explain the word needy for half an hour? (oh it is so nice) There were kids from else where as well: Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Switzerland, Canada and France. Because our Latvian group was so largely out numbered by the group from Sweden we were deemed "Team Latvia" and referred to as a group more than individuals the remainder of the weekend.
After lunch we headed off to work on our acts for the "talent" show that would be performed at the next meeting. To give you the idea of the "talent" the boys decided they would like to all do a ribbon dance to Dancing Queen by ABBA, ABBA being the most cultural thing about it...but it was really funny to watch them prance around with toilet paper. The evening included bowling, dinner (which was very tasty), and then free time. They told us to not leave town and try not to get back to the hostel to late, so the group decided to hit a Disco, which in the end put us back to the hostel just shy of two in the morning...and led to us all sitting in the kitchen talking until right around four in the morning...We all agreed the next day that our bodies hated us.
After the refrigerator turned to be just full of cheese, sausage and bread Taylor(Arizona), Katie and I headed out to find some "Corn Flakes"...We found our cereal, danced with it across a bridge, we were then unsuccessful in locating any hot chocolate and so headed back to the hostel to enjoy our find.
It was really hard to see all the kids head out their separate ways, I guess it was kind of like a home away from home for a weekend. We really really enjoyed ourselves, the company was truly amazing. You really realize how alone you are in Europe having 24 less exchange students around you the next day.
And that was my adventure to Sweden, a whole lot of good good fun.
Until next time.
From Latvia with love
Oct 30, 2006
Oct 3, 2006
Korina Malkoma, wait...who is she?
Can you believe it’s october already? (I don’t) Homecoming week is upon everyone at the high school this week at home, and I miss the nonsense of it all for sure...I mean no one ever needs an excuse to dress up in ridiculous things or anything, but since sports and such aren’t part of my school here that well equals no Homecoming for Corrine. (I guess that mean next year is all or nothing)
The track meet last tuesday went well I guess. My heat of the 100M took four times to actually start for a number of reasons but I did enjoy the wooden blocks, I don’t remember what I ran but it wasn’t too fast nor was it too slow, I made finals! (whatever that means) I then realized why the director of the sports school told me it was a bad idea to run both, it turns out it wasn’t a full track meet and well I had about 20 minutes and then ran the 800M, I won...but that doesn’t matter what matters is that I won a box of chocolate as my prize! (yeah that’s right my best prize so far) So after the 800 I sat down to take of my shoes and had just changed my shirt when girls walk by for 100M finals, a boy from my class points to them, “shoot!” So I jump up trying to tie my shoes so I’m kind of hoping and trying to change my shirt back to the one with my number on it, I’m sure I looked pretty. I have no idea how I finished in the 100M, but it doesn’t matter the whole deal was pretty entertaining.
Because October 1st (Sunday) was International Teachers day all the kids once again reported to school bearing arms full of flowers for there favorite teachers. The teachers had a meeting all morning so our first three classes were taught by kids from the oldest class, you can only imagine the chaos. My english class was run by two boys from the 12th grade, and of course we all had to introduce ourselves. I introduced myself and as soon as I got “Hi, I’m Corrine Malcolm and I’m from the USA” (in latvian ASV) I was interrupted with a “Oh baby...” from one of the boys to which the entire class broke out into practically hysterics. My Russian teachers for that day were not so well into the idea of teaching and we just managed to say what our names were. We held a huge presentation in the main hall which basically was just thanks you to all of the wonderful staff at school.
On Saturday I had a rotary dinner, and we had a huge German club as our guest. (about 50 people) The food was good as always, the real reason behind any Rotary meeting good food. I ended up sitting with a nice elderly couple, in their 70s at least, and then a older swiss man. It was very entertaining and they had a lot of questions for me...I don’t mind other international guests, I tend to luck out with the international language being English. My table was the last to get to go get food, and well there was no potatoes left and needless to say my international guests were very disappointed (I on the other hand was not so dismayed, I’m swearing off potatoes when I get back to the US)
Sunday I went to Riga after training in the morning, which involved four 4K repeats with bounding, of course with my luck (yes luck) there was a BMX race getting set up and the boys were going over the course so I had a few close calls but finished with all my limbs. In Riga we walked around and around and up and down the streets of the old city, it was, it is so beautiful. It was like it was out of a picture book I mean there are buildings from 1664, kept up over time and through wars of course but beautiful. All the streets are done in stone, with some really amazing old churches. We went in one church that has gone back and forth from being a Catholic church and a Lutheran church, can you imagine all it’s history? The pipe organ was both gigantic and beautiful, both in appearance and sound. There was someone playing the entire time we were there and I had to just sit in a pew and listen for a long time, it was so peaceful. I don’t know if anyone could go in there with out feeling this overwhelming calm flood them. We were planning on going to the Latvian Occupation Museum, but sadly we did not have enough time, another day...there will be plenty more days to Riga.
Monday lessons were all short because the teachers were leaving at 1:00pm to go and see an opera in Riga. (once again part of the whole international teacher day thing)
But I’ve got to say be in the boys gym class has been a lot of fun, we got to throw javelin! I thought we were going to kill someone, but all in all lots of good fun. My gym teacher handed me a number with safety pins and said, “You run tomorrow 1K, Ja?” How could I turn that down? “Ja!” of course I hand not a clue where it was or at what time, but I was up for whatever races they wanted me to run.
For English class I move around to different classes and different grades, and during class on monday I went to one of the 12th grade classes where I was just suppose to answer questions for a few mins...I ended up answering questions all lesson, where I was finally approached with my first “opinion of bush and the war in iraq” question, I think I handled it all pretty well.
So I ran today, it turned out we got to leave school really early, we walked 30 mins to the trails we would run on and well ran. The high school girls were in 2 or 3 groups (there were 60 girls in total) I led my group and took a wrong turn running give or take an
extra of extra 75 meters or so...not a lot, but when it comes to seconds in only 1000M it matters, I won my group but took third overall by 4 seconds. The best part was that I won a T-shirt, so as long as I keep getting stuff like this I’ll run in any race they ask me to, who wouldn’t run for chocolate or a T-shirt?
And well that is that I guess. On Friday I will go to Sweden for the weekend to meet up with the other kids in my rotary district (4 kids from latvia and about 20 or so in Sweden)...so Stockholm better be ready because well here I come.
I miss you all very much
you best be showing some hurricane spirit.
until next time
Corrine (or in Latvian Korina Malkoma)
The track meet last tuesday went well I guess. My heat of the 100M took four times to actually start for a number of reasons but I did enjoy the wooden blocks, I don’t remember what I ran but it wasn’t too fast nor was it too slow, I made finals! (whatever that means) I then realized why the director of the sports school told me it was a bad idea to run both, it turns out it wasn’t a full track meet and well I had about 20 minutes and then ran the 800M, I won...but that doesn’t matter what matters is that I won a box of chocolate as my prize! (yeah that’s right my best prize so far) So after the 800 I sat down to take of my shoes and had just changed my shirt when girls walk by for 100M finals, a boy from my class points to them, “shoot!” So I jump up trying to tie my shoes so I’m kind of hoping and trying to change my shirt back to the one with my number on it, I’m sure I looked pretty. I have no idea how I finished in the 100M, but it doesn’t matter the whole deal was pretty entertaining.
Because October 1st (Sunday) was International Teachers day all the kids once again reported to school bearing arms full of flowers for there favorite teachers. The teachers had a meeting all morning so our first three classes were taught by kids from the oldest class, you can only imagine the chaos. My english class was run by two boys from the 12th grade, and of course we all had to introduce ourselves. I introduced myself and as soon as I got “Hi, I’m Corrine Malcolm and I’m from the USA” (in latvian ASV) I was interrupted with a “Oh baby...” from one of the boys to which the entire class broke out into practically hysterics. My Russian teachers for that day were not so well into the idea of teaching and we just managed to say what our names were. We held a huge presentation in the main hall which basically was just thanks you to all of the wonderful staff at school.
On Saturday I had a rotary dinner, and we had a huge German club as our guest. (about 50 people) The food was good as always, the real reason behind any Rotary meeting good food. I ended up sitting with a nice elderly couple, in their 70s at least, and then a older swiss man. It was very entertaining and they had a lot of questions for me...I don’t mind other international guests, I tend to luck out with the international language being English. My table was the last to get to go get food, and well there was no potatoes left and needless to say my international guests were very disappointed (I on the other hand was not so dismayed, I’m swearing off potatoes when I get back to the US)
Sunday I went to Riga after training in the morning, which involved four 4K repeats with bounding, of course with my luck (yes luck) there was a BMX race getting set up and the boys were going over the course so I had a few close calls but finished with all my limbs. In Riga we walked around and around and up and down the streets of the old city, it was, it is so beautiful. It was like it was out of a picture book I mean there are buildings from 1664, kept up over time and through wars of course but beautiful. All the streets are done in stone, with some really amazing old churches. We went in one church that has gone back and forth from being a Catholic church and a Lutheran church, can you imagine all it’s history? The pipe organ was both gigantic and beautiful, both in appearance and sound. There was someone playing the entire time we were there and I had to just sit in a pew and listen for a long time, it was so peaceful. I don’t know if anyone could go in there with out feeling this overwhelming calm flood them. We were planning on going to the Latvian Occupation Museum, but sadly we did not have enough time, another day...there will be plenty more days to Riga.
Monday lessons were all short because the teachers were leaving at 1:00pm to go and see an opera in Riga. (once again part of the whole international teacher day thing)
But I’ve got to say be in the boys gym class has been a lot of fun, we got to throw javelin! I thought we were going to kill someone, but all in all lots of good fun. My gym teacher handed me a number with safety pins and said, “You run tomorrow 1K, Ja?” How could I turn that down? “Ja!” of course I hand not a clue where it was or at what time, but I was up for whatever races they wanted me to run.
For English class I move around to different classes and different grades, and during class on monday I went to one of the 12th grade classes where I was just suppose to answer questions for a few mins...I ended up answering questions all lesson, where I was finally approached with my first “opinion of bush and the war in iraq” question, I think I handled it all pretty well.
So I ran today, it turned out we got to leave school really early, we walked 30 mins to the trails we would run on and well ran. The high school girls were in 2 or 3 groups (there were 60 girls in total) I led my group and took a wrong turn running give or take an
extra of extra 75 meters or so...not a lot, but when it comes to seconds in only 1000M it matters, I won my group but took third overall by 4 seconds. The best part was that I won a T-shirt, so as long as I keep getting stuff like this I’ll run in any race they ask me to, who wouldn’t run for chocolate or a T-shirt?
And well that is that I guess. On Friday I will go to Sweden for the weekend to meet up with the other kids in my rotary district (4 kids from latvia and about 20 or so in Sweden)...so Stockholm better be ready because well here I come.
I miss you all very much
you best be showing some hurricane spirit.
until next time
Corrine (or in Latvian Korina Malkoma)
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