Grand Rapids, Michigan. Home of... Well, some interesting things I am sure. But more importantly, it is the site of Rotary's annual Summer Conference for exchange students.
The conference encompasses all of the Central States Rotary Youth Exchangees. The Central States district is made up of Rotary districts in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Ontario, Canada. There were about 1,400 people there! About 700 of those were actual exchange students (Outbounds, Inbounds, Rebounds and Rotex), and the rest were parents and Rotary officials.
Here's what we did:
ThursdayMy district (6270) arrived after a 6 hour bus ride at around 5. The only planned event we were supposed to go to was a little session in a chapel where some Rotary official went over all the rules a couple of dozen times. Afterwards there was a "DJ and sandwich" party. Yes. There was just music and sandwiches. I found it amusing.
FridayThe best part of the entire schedule was that from 1:00-7:00am we all had "Personal Meditation." I don't know what anyone else was doing during that time, but I for one was sleeping, not meditating. The Opening Ceremonies were held that afternoon. It largely consisted of standing up, sitting back down, clapping and listening to people sing national anthems. A bit after that was the part I was most looking forward to, meeting other Peruvians at the country discussion groups. I was super excited to hear all about Peru and Ecuador (since not many are going to either, they were combined) from Inbounds and Rebounds. I also met the other outbounds! Three (out of five) of us are going to be in the same club, and one is even going to the same school as I am!
After dinner there was a "DJ and Pizza Party." Although that sounded a bit more promising than the sandwich party, I opted to go to the Olympic sized swimming pool with some other people from district 6270.
SaturdayWe had more "Personal Meditation" again until 7. We then went to a meeting presented by the travel agency that's supposed to be arranging our flights. Most of us feel asleep, except for the parents who were shouting questions left, right and center. Afterwards, most of us just went back to the dorms to chill until the next thing we technically
had to go to, which was a meeting with our "Area Correspondent." Thankfully, that was the last time we had to sit and get talked at.
One of the most exciting events of the weekend was after that, the soccer game. Soccer is pretty popular around the world, so most countries had a decent showing. However, one kinda stood way above the rest- Brazil. So much in fact, that the game is called "Brazil against the World." Guess who won? Brazil. It ended in a shoot-out though, which was reportedly better than the World had done in some time.
After that, a mass of students clustered onto the lawns in front of the dining hall, with the intent of trading pins. Pins are part of the rotary tradition- everyone is expected to find about 200 pins that represent who they are and where they are from. They then trade these pins with other exchangees, and put the pins they receive onto their navy blue rotary blazers. Among my favorite things to receive were: a koala bear keychain from Australia, a blinking brazil heart-shaped flag, a thai doll and a canadaian playing card.
The last major event of the weekend was the Variety Show. There was a lot of typical dancing, singing and the like. My favorite part was the guys who did "glowsticking." I was unaware of this growing fad, but it was pretty cool. They turned off the lights so that basically all you could see were the glowsticks (which were tied to a length of string) swinging about. Hard to describe, but totally awesome.
SundayWe left at 8 in the morning and almost everyone slept all the way to where we were stopping for lunch. After lunch we took pictures in front of the bus. It was then that it hit most of us that this was going to be our last thing together in the states. It hit the Inbounds hardest of all, since most of them are leaving this week. The rest of the bus ride was full of words of goodbye and good luck.
Vocabulary Lesson of the Day:Outbound: An exchange student who is about to go somewhere
Inbound: An exchange student who is currently on exchange somewhere
Rebound: An exchange student who has already completed their exchange and is back in their home country
Rotex: The Alumni of the Rotary Youth Exchange. They often help plan events for inbounds in their district.
Somebody gave me this card at my party on Saturday, and I have to say that it pretty much defines my life right now. Everything is going by so fast, but I'm loving every minute of it. 
