Hi, I’m Thilde, I’m an Inbound student from Denmark and I live in Mesa and I’m with the Mesa West Rotary club. I’m going to tell you all a little about how my exchange is going so far and what I do in my free time and in school.
I go to school everyday at Arete Preparatory Academy and play soccer on their JV soccer team. Through soccer I have made a lot of new friends and created stronger bonds with other friends. It is really nice to be doing a sport that can also bring people all throughout different grades in high school together. We play a few games every week or so and so far our Varsity girls soccer team has been undefeated, meaning that we have not lost a single game this season yet. Our coach says it is because we haven’t played the difficult schools yet, but we are playing them this week, so I’m excited to see how that is going to go.
Next weekend is RYLA and all of us are really excited for it, meeting all the people from interact clubs in high schools all around Arizona and just meeting new people. I find that meeting new people is one of the most fun things because you get to expand your knowledge from other cultures or just small things that you might not have known about.
This weekend me and 3 other exchange students from Sweden, Germany and Spain made dishes from our home countries and sold them as a fundraising event for the train tour at the end of the year. It was very successful and we all had a lot of fun preparing the food, serving it and meeting all the people as well as getting plenty of feedback on how the food was. We are all very happy with how it turned out and we raised a lot of money that will help us pay for the train tour. So we are very grateful for everything.
For Thanksgiving, my Host Mom and her boyfriend took me to visit her family in Chicago. She has a big family and we all went. We had a lot of fun with Ice Skating and all the food we had was delicious, we all contributed in helping and the days leading up to Thanksgiving were filled with cooking and joyous conversations with each other. On Thanksgiving day we got up early and went for a turkey-pie trot. It was interesting since after you finished the “race” you would go and receive your prize which was a pizza “pie” or a smaller sized pie. It was a fun tradition to experience.
For Christmas, since it isn’t really a huge thing here in America, I spent most of my day at home working on jigsaw puzzles. I had a call with my parents and was joined in on their Christmas eve since it is the big night where we have a lot of traditions. It was hard to watch and not be a part of but that’s okay, that makes next year so much more special. We went to church later on in the evening and later went to get Chinese food after the service was over. They were playing some wonderful music and made it so interesting. Christmas morning was relaxing, we all woke up and sat down around the tree, I had my parents on call with us so they could be a part of it too and my Host Mom called her daughter briefly to wish her a merry Christmas. I got presents from my host family about things related to Arizona and I really enjoyed it, I of course got them gifts as well and they liked those too.
On January 20th 2024 the Rotary club of Mesa West is hosting a post-holiday Christmas party that I have been invited to along with some of my other exchange friends. We are really excited for it and have planned on getting ready together at a Rotarian couple’s house. We are excited to experience a Rotary Christmas party since this is the first one, we are going to support and show that we care about Rotary and we appreciate them and all they have done for us. My friend and I are going to make a presentation about the organization and how it is being an exchange student along with how to apply at my school during the month of January. We are hoping this will promote Rotary and have more people interested in exchange and more applicants for the following years. I am looking forward to spending more time with my Rotary club and getting to know them all a little better and also attending more meetings to hear more about Rotary.