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Karina Gummert, Marcel Gummert, Sigi Scholten, August 7, 2018 Marcel spoke on August 7th about his experience as a youth exchange student in Italy during the school year 2017-2018. He was introduced by his mother, club member Sigi Scholten, who spoke of how proud she was of her children, how much the year changed them, and how grateful she was to Rotary and our club for the great opportunity. Summary of Marcel's talkPeople usually think Spaghetti, Pizza, Gelato, and hand gestures. And the hand gestures one is so true! In the North of Italy and very densely populated: Cremona Not a very unified country, with different dialects even as close as 50km apart. I played soccer there – had to register and paperwork took 5 months to come back from Rome! Attended all the practices, but in the end I couldn’t play in the games with my team. Everyone crazy about soccer, even if they don’t play. The pizza there tastes SO different than the pizza here. I liked the thinner one best. 13 exchange students in Cremona and we would meet regularly to chat and have coffee. Stayed with 3 different host families and it was an amazing experience. After about 7 mos, I made dinner for 11 of us exchange students. Visited Pisa, Milan (went 5 or 6 times); went skiing at Ponto di Ligno – through the clouds!; Lake Garda, Rome (my sister Karina visited with me in March); Class trip to Munich!; Venice – best seafood ever!; Sicily – most beautiful beach ever!; Salo (visited our exchange student from last year); Great water bottle fillup stations! Florence (in hospital for 5 days, and that messed up my visit with my family); Cinque Terre – 5 little towns on beautiful cliffs overlooking the water; Prague; Vienna – went to the UN; Budapest – my favourite city of the whole trip – good food and awesome people; Slovenia; visited so many different cities that I can’t remember them all! I learned so much – new life experiences, new friends, beautiful memories. Thank you SO much for this opportunity – the best year of my life yet! PhotosQuestionsQ (Bill E. with a grin): Did you go to school? A: I DID go to school there and studied Italian. High schools are subject specific – language, science, economics – different from here. Q: (Michelle) Before you went, what did you most want to achieve? A: I wanted to learn Italian. Achieved a language certificate. Heather thanked Marcel on behalf of the Club. |
