What is Foreign Exchange to Me?

"A year of of my life. My life in a year."

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About Me

Rotary District Conference - Reno 2010

Angie's Odyssey - A "Germanized" Girl in California

(Angie's Odyssey- A California Girl in Germany )


Heyho! My name is Angela Rose, but people call me Angie. I spent what would have been my senior year (12th year) of high school in Hameln, Germany with Rotary Youth Exchange, and this is the blog I started during my exchange year.

I grew up in Santa Rosa, California, a town of about 160,000 people north of San Francisco, and spent the 2011-2012 school year in Hameln, Lower Saxony, Germany. Hameln is the town of the Pied Piper from the Grim Brother Fairy Tales, and has a population of about 60,000 people. It is located directly on the beautiful Weser River.

My favorite color is purple (but only dark shades, I don't really care for light shades of purple), and I play soccer (goalie and left mid-field), badminton (singles and girls-doubles), and I rock climb. I also ballroom and jazz dance and play the piano.
Sailing the San Francisco Bay

Before coming to Germany, I was the Boatswain's Mate of Sea Scout Ship Orion, Jazz Band Sound Manager, and had the senior position at a day care. 

Sound Crew 2010
   


I speak English, Spanish, and now German (though I did not speak a word before going to Germany - I remember looking up how to say 'please' in my dictionary on one of the three plane rides over here).


I wouldn't have been able to go to Germany without the help and support of my friends and family, Glenda Sales, Rotary Youth Exchange, and Rotary Club Valley of the Moon, Rotary Club Middletown and Rotary Club Hameln.

Currently I am attending the Santa Rosa Junior College and studying International Relations, German, and Spanish. I am the German tutor at the Junior College, and I work at a sports retail store called Big 5. I am a member of the Political Science Club, the Rotaract Club, and the Honors Society and I hope to one day move back to Germany. Home is where the heart is, and my heart is in Germany.

Thank you everyone for this experience, it wasn't a year of my life, but rather my life in a year.

Days in Germany