Rotary Youth Exchange Orientation in Madrid

Hello Everyone,

Last weekend I went to the inbound student orientation in Madrid. Orientation was from Thursday, September 22nd until Saturday, September 24th. On Thursday morning, my host dad, Jose Miguel, drove me to the "Zaragoza Delicias" bus station which is underneath the Zaragoza train station. There I met up with Maggie, Joe, and Marley, the other exchange students that live in Zaragoza. There was also two "Rotex", which are students who participated in the exchange in the past. Both of the Rotex live in Zaragoza but went to the USA last year as exchange students. There names are Javier and Fernando. We all went on the 8:50 a.m. bus to Madrid. The bus ride was roughly 4 hours and we stopped half way through at a rest area for a snack and to use the bathroom. The bus ride was very uneventful except for the fact that there was a kid with no shirt or shoes on which I though was strange. What happened to "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service?" Anyways, the bus ride seemed a lot shorter than 4 hours because Maggie, Marley, Joe, and I talked the entire bus ride and shared stories about what we have done and experienced in Spain so far. When we arrived at the bus station in Madrid, there was another Rotex named Sarah waiting for us. We were the first of the 45-ish kids to arrive for our bus. There were two different buses that picked up the exchange students from the bus station, train station, and airport. Yes, some of the students live in the Canary Islands and in Mallorca. How great is that?! Anyways, since we were the first to arrive, we had to wait for the other students. Maggie, Marley, Joe, the Rotex, and I went to a cafe down the street, sat down, had coca-cola, and talked for about two hours. This was very enjoyable because I was able to get to know the 2 Rotex guys who live very close to me in Zaragoza.

After that, we met up with all of the other students who arrived at the bus station. We then took about an hour long bus ride to a country club/camp where the orientation was. There we met the exchange directors and the students that were on the other bus. There were around 80-ish students in total. Those students were exchange students from all over Spain. We didn't get to the camp until around 5:30 p.m. The first night, the directors spoke to us for a little while, then we got our rooms, then we had dinner and all the students hung out. My room had 6 guys, including myself. In my room was Aaron, Jackson, Cameron, Sam (who I know from NY before we got here), another Rotex guy who I saw for about 10 seconds of the weekend, and myself. All of th guys in my room were really cool and we all got along really well. I hope to see them again throughout the year. On Friday morning after breakfast, the students all exchanged pins with each other. In Rotary, each student has a blazer that says "Rotary Youth Exchange" and they trade pins from their home with other students and put them all on their blazer. We also traded our contact business cards. After that we had information sessions until lunch. Some of the presentations included rules, self protection, spanish culture and holidays, as well as experiences from past exchange students. After lunch, the students played games and participated in various activities that were run by Rotex. There was a scavenger hunt, trivia, team activites, and a few sports games. In one of the games, each of the 80-some odd kids had a colored streamer tied to their waist and were divided into four teams. There was orange, blue, red, and green. The team with the orange streamers had to try to get all of the streamers from the blue team, the blue team from the red, the red team from the green, and green from orange. So imagine this, 80 +/- teenagers with streamers tied to their wastes running around trying to avoid certain people while going after others in a giant mob. People were poping out left and right from behind other people. Get ready for this! So a boy was chasing after me to get my streamer so I was running as fast as I could and Jackson popped out from behind someone running as fast as he could  and BAM!!! HEAD ON, FACE-TO FACE COLLISION!!! Well wouldn't you know, guess who blacked out? Me! So next thing I remember is waking up to my friend Maggie there with a TON of people surrounding me asking if I was okay...and to Jackson saying that his leg hurt. So they helped me up, I talked to Jackson to see how he was doing. He didn't black out but his leg had a big lump and was red. It later turned into a bruise. Jackson is a bit taller than me so when we collided, my knee went into his leg. Ouch!

After that happened, everyone just hung out and talked for a bit before dinner. At dinner, everyone sang "Feliz Cumpleanos" to a girl named Felicia from Austria whose birthday was two days before. After dinner, all of the students presented Rotary banners from their sponsoring clubs at home. I presented my banner from the Rotary Club of Carmel, NY. Finally, to end the night there was a camp fire type program minus the fire. Everyone worked with the other people in their room to put on some sort of song or skit. Some brave souls also sang songs and played instruments by themselves. One girl sang "Just Breath" by Anna Nalick while playing the guitar and she was AMAZING! It felt like a private concert. Another girl sang an original song while playing the guitar. Both of them are very talented. We then retired to our rooms and chatted into the wee hours of the morning. On Saturday morning after breakfast, we packed our rooms and got on the buses home. I arrived back in Zaragoza at around 5:30 p.m. I was sad to see it come to an end. Although it may sound silly because most of us only met two days prior, we all became very close. I can't wait to see them all again!

I hope you enjoy the pictures below!

Until next time, Brian

Sunrise from my room

Mitra and I

Jess, Francesca, and I

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

Some of the students (I'm on the left with the gray shirt)

All of the students with their Rotary blazers