The Hoedown

Last Friday almost everyone from our class went to an event called the hoedown. It's basically a traditional american get together where you display square dance skills. Talk Time had arranged this event. Talk Time is occupied by arranging all kinds of event for international students in the area.  It was held at a big church in the town Bothell about 15 miles from Lynnwood. When we came there were led to different tables. Each table had their own leader to "take care" of everything. A band (professional or unprofessional was hard to tell) was playing some classic country songs to set the mood among the all the participants of this event. A pretty sloppy BBQ was served, but for only seven bucks you couldn't expect more, before the dancing part of the event. Then it came to the exciting part, the square dance. The claimed "experienced" dancers showed us how to dance, even though they actually messed it up. All 200 people at the event gathered in three big circles. The dancers had a failed attempt trying to make all of us do the same at the same time while doing it right. I was the only one in the class that didn't get a partner from within our class (typical) but i got a sweet girl from Japan, Jasmine, as partner. We quickly formed groups of eight for us to dance in so we could attempt to dance square dance the way it's supposed to be danced. Even though no one really was brilliant at it we had a lot of fun, partly because we messed up more than we did good. It was definitely a fun night with almost everyone from 2.y.

Seattle Recap

I finally found motivation to do a blogpost. These first weeks have been kind of hectic physically and emotionally. It has been a little hard to get used to everything, but luckily I have amazing friends to make everything much better. I have finally settled down here in surburb Lynnwood and is really appreciating every second of my experience here.

My American Home


I live with YY, who has lived in America for 10 years, but originally is from China, and Jay, who also has lived here for about 10 years. He is originally from Malaysia. They have another student staying with them called Ruri, pronounced Luli, from Japan. She has been here for 2 weeks longer than me, and is going to be here until March 2011. We live in a small house in the surburb Lynnwood. I have about 10 min to school by buss, so I don't have to spend as much of my time on transportation as in Denmark.

My home in Lynnwood

My home in Lynnwood

My host family

They are all really nice people. But they don't have that much time on hand to take me around the area, so i haven't really explored the surroundings besides Alderwood mall. I have to depend on my friends and explore this new world together with them. But I don't mind. For me this whole experience is also about making even stronger bonds among everyone from the class. 

  YY and Jay are very busy doing their own things, so that makes it harder to incorporate being a host-family into their lives. But they sure are some nice people and they let me do pretty much what i want to. They understand what it's like to be young, they are only 26 and 29, and they know that both their and my time is limited. They don't have many boundarries but they do have one, I can't bring friends over, which i have a hard time finding understanding for. But in their house I will respect their rules.  

  They do cook very delicious food for me. Everything is pretty much Asian. I have been having a hard time eating without a knife though. But finally they have bought me one, so eating every dish won't be a challenge for me. 

 As long as they give me all my freedom and good me great food i won't complain. 

These are some pictures from around the house... 

The hall

The small kitchen

The living room

The huge television

My desk

My big bed

I have the bigger room in the house. Ruri didn't want to switch room when their last exchange student went back to Korea, and that's why i got it. It's really nice and seems twice as big as my room back home, so i have been pretty lucky.


Week 1 recap


The entire class went to Seattle to explore the surroundings. We all went to the Space Needle (the trademark of Seattle) and the infamous gum wall (another trademark of Seattle).

The Space Needle

 I was kind of nervous going up to the very top of the Space Needle. The elevator is on the outside of the building and is made of glass, so you could se everything while leaving the solid ground. Probably a beautiful sight for everyone else but me. But the sight from the top of the building was amazing. You could see all around Seattle in a 360° view.

Here are some pictures from downtown Seattle...

Downtown Seattle. View from Space Needle

View from Space Needle

Downtown

As mentioned we went to the gum wall. It was the most disgusting tourist attractions i have ever seen. It smelled nauseatingly bad and the thought of ten thousands of peoples spit splashed up on a random wall in post alley yukked me out (a creative word by me)

Cathrine and I in front of the gum wall

It was an interesting day, and i must admit that i have fallen in love with the feel and beauty of Seattle.

School Recap

Being in Seattle is almost like being on vacation. We have so much more spare time, and after school we can actually have a life that doesn't involve multiple hours of homework and school assignments. Even though we do have homework we can use the tutoring sessions in the morning to finish them, and give us self some extra time to spend in the afternoon. I really love the school here, since it allows me to finally have a little freedom. 

  Even though I like going to college here I think that they haven't been organizing this whole program very well. There are to many misunderstandings and there has been lacking to much communication between teachers prior to our trip. I hope that's something they can improved for next year's program. 

I look forward to the next few weeks to see where this experience will take me. 

Simone