Shop openings and good news

My dad finally opened up his restaurant today! Its part of the reason I've been so busy the last 2 days. He's selling sushi and cheesecake as well as other assorted goods. My personal is the orange cupcakes with orange butter cream frosting. And I may have finnaly found a solution to a problem.with the exchange that has been halting things for almost a week now! I'm looking in to the final details tomorrow but so far it's promising! 

I've been talking a lot with my host sister Ania (I know you'll read this at some point :)) and I have discovered the joy that is online books, I'd never really tried one until today and I found an amazing series because of an app I found that tells me when that kind of thing goes on sale, I got 4 books free. I already finished one book (in a day) and went to get the next in the series only to find that it was 3 dollars instead of free...So tomorrow I'm putting a 20 in my account and getting them all

...future reference for the nurses when I'm old and bored: keep me away from the shopping channel, I am not to be trusted no matter what I say. I can already tell I'm going to be that old man in 48 years. for those of you doing the math, I'll be 64 and legally aloud to sing "when I'm 64" to my hearts content while wasting my money on laser blenders with built in robot helpers.

Calvin part 3

So I got my phone back a few days ago but I've been rather busy so I forgot, sorry I'm posting 2 today to try and make up for it.

The last day of Calvin college I woke up at 730 after going to bed at nearly 5...not a good idea. I went to breakfast then said goodbye to everyone, it was sad to see the inbounds go because I knew I wouldn't see them again unless something weird happens in the future.  Then I went to turn my key in....... On the 1st day I noticed a crack on the little plastic piece that said Calvin college but I didn't think.much of it until it broke that night because I sat on it, because of a 10 cent piece of plastic I lost my 20 dollar deposit. I went to wait in the parking lot for my father and the others carpooling with us and he was another 45 minutes after that and he got in line in his dorm about the se time I did. The drive home was nice, at least the part I was awake for,I fell asleep for about half an hour. When we got to my house willows mother picked up her and her father. Then I went he and slept until morning. All in all it was pretty boring day. 

As promised here are the pictures

Visas and host families and luggage, oh my

So my visa came 3 days ago, then that same night I finally made contact with my host familyand today my luggage came.

My visa came stamped and ready to go, it goes into effect the 18th of August which turns out is the same day that my host sister Ania comes to America on youth exchange, I'm going to try and leave the 16th so I can meet her before she leaves but there is something I have to take care of before I make a flight plan.

My host mothers name is Beata and she is a tour guide in Krakow, my host father is paweł and I believe he owns an amp company. I have 2 host brothers (which will be interesting because I've only ever had sisters...kinda.... August is still an infant) their names are Andrzej (11) and Olus (4). My host sister is Ania and she's coming somewhere in district 6250 which is either in Wisconsin or Minnesota, I don't remember which one off the top of my head. 

My luggage came in the mail today, it was supposed to come yesterday but I missed the delivery man by 20 minutes. It has a combination lock and nice swively wheels that kinda make me want to try and dance with it dramatically😜😂.

I'm afraid I have to end this post with some bad news. My great grandmother passed away in her sleep today. She went to take a nap and simply never woke up. She was pretty far gone already and we knew it was coming but it's still pretty sad.

July 18

I know I promised that I would post the pictures from Calvin college but complications arose and now i'm writing this a day late on my fathers computer (the photos are on my phone) sorry, I will try and incorporate them into my next blog post. A lot has happened since my last post: 

1. I RECEIVED MY VISA!!!!!!!!!! at about 1:30 pm my visa came

2. I finally got in contact with my host club, I've been sending emails a lot the last few days and i finally got a reply, I emailed my YEO Pawel while moving up the chain of command and he responded within 30 minutes of the email, which was both impressive and appreciated since it was 2:30 am in Poland. he said my host family are his neighbors and that he would ask them in the morning to contact me back! 

3. I finished my essay on Poland but I'm missing a few pieces regarding my host rotary club, now that I can contact them ill ask if they know any of it. the essay/bulletin is 13 pages long and was completed in a 3 day span they gave me a greater appreciation for professional writers on a deadline (those 3 days were consumed with google, conversations with rebounds, and spellcheck).

4. I ordered business cards and thank you cards from vista print.

5. I put all the buttons from Calvin on my jacket 

6. I learned how to say "my name is" and "where is the" in polish

my name is- Nazywan sie 

where is the- Jak moge znalezc 

(it wont let me add the phonetics on this keyboard) 

Calvin part 2

The pictures from Calvin will all come in the 3rd post. On the 2nd day we woke up at 7 to eat then went to another meeting in the lecture hall, next was Breakout sessions with the rotarians in charge of sendimg us to our areas of the world. Then we went to a meeting with the rebounds to see what they learned and to ask questions about stuff like: what to pack, what not to say, what to always say, how to act, what to wear.... Stuff like that. Then was the Brazil vs the world soccer game for 2.5 hours. Then was one more lecture hall meeting and the talent show (yes I have some videos). Speaking of videos I have voice recordings and videos I have to put in a drop box but they're on my phone, my phone doesn't have drop box or the room to download it, do I have to send the through a wire to a computer (to big for email) or is there another way? If anyone knows that would be great. Back to the 2nd night. I went dancing for about an hour and a half then ce back to the dorms and played pool and listened to music for another hour, then at 1215 I had to go to a meeting with my outbound coordinator because I missed it the night before due to confusion on my part and me being to tired and to lazy to look into it enough, for which I apologize(d) for. After that I hung out at the district 6540 party for about 45 minutes. Then I went with the outbound to Taiwan (Megan) to a rumored movie room that took forever to find (the 2 of us had been invited by some rebounds cause we're the cool kids 😎... Not really), when we got there an inbound from Lithuania, a rebound from Taiwan (Megan's connection), another outbound (to India), we're there (there were 2 others but they left before I got their names). The only movie anyone could find was finding nemo on VHS... Soooo we just played it over and over and played ukulele and sang off pitch (at least I was off pitch Santiago (india outbound) and the Lithuania inbound we're pretty good).we went to bed at about 430, and I fell asleep at about 5 to wake up at 715 for breakfast... That was a mistake but more on that on Saturday 

Calvin college

the CSRYE conference was a blast, I have so much stuff that I'll cover it all in 3 posts, the 1st post is the 1st day.

On the first day I drove Willow Crisinovan and Sana Shimizu (sorry if I butchered your names) to Calvin from my dads place in a 3 hour drive to grand rapids Michigan. I thought it was far more of a formal affair than it was so I showed up in a dress shirt and tie to find people in band tees and cargo shorts playing Frisbee... I changed as soon as I found my room (20 minutes later). The first thing on the agenda was lunch, then we had a big meeting for all 600 something students and 400 something parents and Rotarians, the vice president of all of rotary was the guest speaker. Next was a Breakout session with the rebounds and inbound students from our countries, it was really cool to see people in different stages of the trip I was getting ready to go on and watch how they acted, the inbounds seemed to have a certain melancholy about them and the rebounds seemed really confident but seemed to be unsure off where they belonged at the same time. I heard lots of interesting stuff from them and things like, what to pack, what is not in Poland that you should bring, which Rotarians get things done faster than others (or which ones will take you shopping when you arrive....most of them we're girls). Next was another meeting then we had dinner then a meeting with the travel agency. Then finally at 900 we we're free for the rest of the night, we just had to be in the dorm buildings by 1230, I went swimming for half an hour then danced for the rest of the time, I don't usually dance so it was a lot of fun. Ill fill in the other 2 days in the next few posts

July 4th INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

I know this ones a little late but I waited a day so I could include pictures of fireworks. I went to rice field (it's a football field at central high school). Before fireworks my sisters and my dad went to a friend or the family's house for BBQ. 20 dollars in sparklers bubbles and pop it's later all 10 kids were off to fireworks. Also THERE WERE PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!