I recently traveled to Copenhagen during the Autumn school holidays and visited a fellow outbound Rotary Youth Exchange student also sponsored by my Rotary District 9710 in Australia. We met each other at both Outbound orientations in Australia and she has been living in Copenhagen as an exchange student since January. I took the opportunity… Read More Kopenhagen
My beloved Grandfather has recently passed away, while I have been living abroad as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Germany. I composed the following tribute, which was delivered at his funeral service by my brother, Campbell. Grandad, you are loved dearly by all and there are many things which I will always fondly remember… Read More A Tribute to Grandad
I was lucky enough during the first weekend of October to visit the world famous Oktoberfest in Munich! The trip was organised by my Rotary District for just a select few exchange students and took place over the German Reunification long weekend. I met with 20 Rotary Youth Exchange students at 6am in southern Hamburg,… Read More Oktoberfest!
During the weekend I attended my host Rotary District’s Inbound Rotary Youth Exchange Orientation. This was my second Orientation weekend since attending my first Orientation weekend in March. This weekend marked my 8 months in Germany as a Rotary Youth Exchange student. Now I’m an ‘Oldie’, so to speak, as I have been living in Germany… Read More Second Orientation
Yesterday I went sailing in Germany for the first time. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, pretty much as soon as I found out that I would be living in Flensburg. A week ago I moved to my third host family, and I now have two younger host brothers who both sail… Read More Last days of Summer
My time in Italy has come to an end; tomorrow I’ll be on the road to Dresden with my host family. Our week together has been beautiful; the weather has been perfect, with only one day of rain. Lake Garda is a picture perfect location and the water body is indeed quite large, we certainly… Read More Italy in Instagram
It’s now the middle of the German summer holidays, which is the peak period for travelling on holiday. My second host family and I have driven for 10 hours from one end of Germany to the other, before arriving in Munich, the third largest city in Germany and capital of Bavaria. Here we are standing… Read More München
[This is Part 2 of my Nordic Adventures through Sweden and Finland. Part 1 can be found here.] The flight from Stockholm, Sweden to Helsinki, Finland took only an hour. I first stepped onto Finnish soil late in the evening and my Dad’s first host brother came to meet me with his son. I stayed with… Read More Nordic Adventures: Finland
[This is Part 1 of my Nordic Adventures through Sweden and Finland. Part 2 can be found here.] It will be the thousandth time that I have mentioned it here on this blog: my Dad was also a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Finland way back in 1989. It was for this very reason that… Read More Nordic Adventures: Sweden
Directly after my weekend on Sylt, I travelled to Berlin for four days with my classmates on a school excursion. The main purpose was to experience Germany’s capital city and its many features of national significance, which many of my friends had never seen before, which was perfect as I hadn’t either! We left early… Read More Berlin
