We are the change

Today has been exhausting. I’m sitting in the Metra train and commuting home. I have a huge head ache from the heat. I got my Chicago cellphone today from the office and I made my first call in the USA.

In the morning Anya picked us up at the Union Station and we took a cab to the office, as we were running late. At first we had the orientation continued, also it was SO good to speak Estonian again and to hear the quality jokes from Ruuben and listen to stories about other hosts. It seems, that me and Greta are the most satisfied with our family. At WorldChicago we also started with a little bit of brain-storming for the action planning. I’m in the same group with Greta from Lithuania, Rasa and Ralfs from Latvia (both are actually cool. Rasa cares about this precise topic very much, and Ralfs is a very cool guy, nice jokes etc.), Triin from Estonia and also the Estonian chaperone Lauri is working with our group.

After the brain-storming we went to the Canadian Consular for lunch. We had a one hour talk with the consul: interesting information about their education system, history and politics and also a comparison with the USA.

After lunch we returned to the office to meet our Dream Leaders youth from Chicago. We had Mecca and Alyssa (birthdaygirl) in our group for the scavanger hunt. Also Lauri, Monika and Julianne came with us. We ended up being the third group out of three, but we still had loads of fun, although I was quite like melting in the sun and not very active.

At first we headed to the Millenium Park to make a peace sign incorporating the bean and taking a picture of it. Then we had to take a picture of a bunch of people by the head fountains as diverse as possible. Third stop was the most popular stage at Grant park. We wrote a haiku about non- violence and also called our group the haikus. Fourth stop was by Lake Michigan and we had to make as much pictures as possible of people being active. Last thing was to get ten people sign a paper and tell, what’s the biggest issue of importance for them as the Americans. We had immigration and heat and healthcare etc.

The Dream Leaders are all very fun and active and I’m glad that we’re gonna spend more time with them throughout the whole time in Chicago.

Ema ja Neti- helistan teile varsti oma kõnekaardiga, mis mulle siin anti.

Pictures are coming tomorrow I hope.

the Wexler family

This is amazing. After arriving in Chicago O’Hare Airport we took an hour- long busride to WorldChicago were we met Lisa and all other program coordinators of the Chicago program. We got tons of papers and telephone cards (I have $5 credit to call home) and metro cards. Me and Greta live the farest away, so we have more metro cards. We have the CTA pass and the Metra zone F cards. We had a snack and the hostfamilies started to flow in. My heart was pumping and I was wondering, who’s gonna pick me up.

Lisa called my name and took me to the Wexler family, waiting down tthe hall. Ken and Suzanne (the parents) and the youngest daughter Alyssa were waiting for us. We had a little chat and then started to drive home. It took us about 45 minutes, without traffic. On our way Alyssa suggested that we could go to the „American mountains“ (rollercoasters) and to the cinema to see „Eclipse“ on our free time. Also to a Reneissance fair and maybe shopping. These plans sound awesome, especially the rollercoasters (ma tean Neti, et sa oled kade :D). The family lives in a suburb called Buffalo Grove. It seriously looks like the Wisteria line from Desperate Housewives, only two times bigger. It is just crazy, the neighbourhood is just so neat and wow, from the movies. Still getting used to it. The house is about three times bigger than mine, looks very pretty. I think you’ll hear more about the house and everything materialistic about my stay.’

But to the more inportant part, the family. Ken works at an office and does employment benefit councelling (I hope I got it right) and he’s interested (very, very) in photography, so he can teach me all about my new camera. (või siis meie kaamera, ema) He does that as a side work and as a hobby. And he’s great at it, they have pictures made by him all over the house! He is very helpful and kind. Suzanne work 15 hours a week in network marketing and volunteers as a home-less shelter director! She is the sweetest person I’ve met, really makes us feel like home with Greta and I could say all the good words about her. She even offered to do our laundry. Alyssa is 12 and she is very smart for her age. I’d say 12 year-olds in Estonia are never that cool.  She made a surprise cake for us, saying „Welcome Anna and Greta“. How sweet is that! And she lets us sleep at her room, while she stay’s at her sisters. Lauren is at a camp right now, she’ll be arriving on Monday and Jeff is coming home from Germany today. The family even has a table for exchange students at their house, thay have had many of those.

I could carry on and on and on and as you may have noticed, my posts have become more American in my expressions, at least it seems so to me. I’m smiling all the time and saying „sorry“ and „thank you“. I couldn’t be happier with my family and I try to keep you updated, but I also try to spend as much time with the family as possible and so I have a little time for blogging. Well, right now im taking the Metra with Greta and Ken, it takes an hour. And then we have a 25-minutes walk to the office.

I’m gonna finish now, or I won’t stop. Kallid Eestisse. Minul on tõesti kõik super hästi. Kodus räägin kõigest veel sada korda detailsemalt. Skaipida praegu ei jõua eriti, aga jätan teate, et millal tulen. Siis saan skaibis võib- olla pere ka näidata.

At the airport

This post was written on Tuesday morning.

During the night I had a dream about my hostfamily, I am so excited to meet them. In the morning I woke up to the alarm clock at 6.45 am, very sleepy, almost ready to go jogging.

I met up with Ruuben downstairs and we ran to the White House and the Kosciusco Park. We saw a lot of squirrels and birds, not shy at all. And of course a lot of people going to work. It was very hard to do any kind of physical activity due to the dampness and hotness in the air. We came back after a half and hour, took a shower, had breakfast and packed my bags. I also visited Ruuben’s suite with Eva and chatted with a funny Lithuanian guy Andrej Kokoc. He’s hilarious with his huge love of records and Cold War. He call’s himself a chatterbox and says, that all Lithuanians are to sleepy and inactive. I had a good session of laughter and then we headed to the Ronald Reagan National Airport. Right now I’m sitting at the gate and waiting for my flight to Chicago. I’m super excited about meeting my hostfamily. As I don’t have wifi here, I’ll post this later.

We chatted with Karoline from the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Summer Institute on facebook, and it turns out, that she is also in Washington DC right now, staying at a hotel just a few blocks away from us, but she has such a tight schedule and we just have no time to meet.

Vahtusperest kirjutan juba loodetavasti täna õhtul või homme hommikul. Tervitusi kõigile!!

Integrating

Today we started the day with working out at the gym with Ruuben. Then the regular blueberry waffel and Hilton coffee. Meagan and Monika picked us up and we headed to the AED to meet Dr. Gary Weaver, who gave us a lecture about the US society and culture. It was highly interesting and catching, a good introduction to the American society and a fundament for understanding their culture. Of course I conspected throughout the lecture, it's good to have everything written down, cause we are experiencing so much, that it's hard for me to remind the morning.



After the lecture we went to have lunch to an Italian restaurant Bucca di Beppo. Four courses, delicious food, a lot of talking. It seems to me, that the Estonians are the loudest group, we have really bonded and we have our own weird Estonian jokes, that others wouldn't understand anyway. During lunch I chatted with Greta and Benedikta. By the way, I forgot to mention the most exciting part. We got the information about our host families. I'm staying with Greta at a northwestern suburb of Chicago: Buffalo Grove. I looked up my house at google maps and it looks huge. The parents have three children: Jeff- 16, Lauren- 14, Alyssa- 11. They are interested in travelling, photography, horsebach riding, cooking, music, cheerleading, volunteering. They have hosted many exchange students and they are keeping close contact with them.



In the afternoon we had a meeting with a lady from City Year Washington, a volunteer community service organisation for 17-24 year old people. The basically commit a year to their city, working with students etc. The lady was sweet and we asked a lot of questions. But it seems to me, that it would be almost impossible for us, Estonians, to have a similar corps organisation, because volunteerism and community service has such a history and importance in this country and that's something we are learning here.



Done with our interactive sessions, we headed to the American History Museum at the Smithsonian. All the museums in DC exept Newseum are free, very cool! The museum was interesting, but I was expecting more. We saw the gowns of the first ladies and Americans in war and the first big Stars- Spangled Banner. I'll show you some pictures of the gowns. You can take a look at the rest of the photos at my fotki album (annasaarso). At the Black American history department it was nice to see black American families learning about their history and young African Americans saying: "Hey, look at this, this is were we come from!".


Michell Obama's inaguration gown







We wanted to visit the Air and Space Museum and the Indian American Museum, but they closed early on Monday. so we headed to the Mall. Not the National Mall, but a shopping mall near Pentagon. We metroed there and also took some time to observe Pentagon. There was a Memorial to those, who died in Pentagon in 9/11. A very peaceful and nice place. The Pentagon was huge but not high at all. There were a lot of militarists taking the metro nearby.







We metroed to the Mall, it was just above the station: huge, and I mean HUGE, all- American, lots of shops. We decided not to buy anything yet, cause we have free time during the last days of the program and also in Chicago. I rushed through the Mall visitin Forever 21, Banana Republic, Aldo, French Connection etc. Fab!!!I'm coming back with extra suitcases. I also went to the Apple store and played with iPad and iPhone 4, cute! :) The cheapest Apple laptop is $999.



Tomorrow we decided to go jogging to the city with Ruuben, it is very common among the local people. At 11 am we are leaving for Chicago to meet our host families. Washington DC has become our home very quickly. I don't feel like I'm in a big strange city. I know the metro system and the streets and the districts and all in all, it's a nice place to stay.

PS! I haven't had any burgers or french fries yet! :)

Tervitusi kodustele ja sõpradele. Kui keegi midagi Ameerikast väga ihaldab, siis andke teada. Ja kommenteerige kui viitsite, et millest tahaksite rohke kuulda.

Heatwave and memorials

Waking up today I had no problem dealing with the time difference. It's much harder to stand this heat and dampness. I'm totally dehydrating. CVS is a useful place to catch a bottle of water. My favourite so far is their lemonade- it has this sour lemon taste, delicious.


Meagan, Monika, Hannah, Carolyn

About the program: after eating our waffles with blueberries for breakfast, we met at the Logan room with the participants, Monika, Meagan (another nice young lady from AED), Hannah and Carolyn, both from the Department of State. We introduced ourselves, Monika talked about the program and Carolyn about our position and the purpose of the program. As the lunch accidentally wasn't organised at the hotel, Meagan ordered pizza. The slices were triple size and had triple fat, but it was good, all American. During the time we waited for the pizza, we started bonding with each other. Talked about our countries and habits, showed Estonian money etc.





The limousine bus picked us up at the hotel and a state officer was our guide for the next couple of hours. Our first stop was the White House. Very small, not that impressive. There were some people protesting against nuclear weapons just outside of the gates.



Second place: the Capitol. Much nicer, bigger, whiter and more interesting. On our way there Ken (our guide) talked a lot about the history of the USA and its politics. After that we drove through the Chinatown: it's practically dieing out.





Third place: Jefferson Memorial: a lot bigger than I thought it would be, genius quotations on the walls. We learned about all the memorials at school, but I had forgotten most of it. Seeing all these places, I realized, that you cannot experience or know a place just by books and texts, but you really have to see it with your own eyes. Only now I'll remember what did Jefferson stand for and when was Roosevelt the president etc.











Fourth stop: Roosevelt Memorial: my favourite. As Roosevelt is the only president, that served more than two terms (four), the memorial was quite different. It was divided into four parts according to the terms: Great Depression, II World War, peacetime and his death. Everything was depicted through metal and stone figures and fountains. There were a bunch of sentences said by F.D. Roosevelt himself, all very genius. It was not only the biggest memorial I've seen in my life, but it was clearly my favorite, with all the symbols and quotes, just genius.





Last sight: Lincoln Memorial: again BIG. We also saw the Reflecting Pool next to it.

After the tour we headed to Nando's Peri Peri to have our dinner and meet the rest of the Latvians. The portions here are really huge, but the bottomless soft drink was smart. Latvians are the only ones, that have more than one boy, they have two! We walked back to the hotel, after loading my pictures to the computer we headed out to show the city to the Latvians, who unfortunately missed the tour. Me, Eva and Ruuben were to tired to walk to the Capitol and we took the metro to go back to the hotel. The metro is, again, big, fast, not crowded. The escalators are half a mile long, crazy. We decided to go to the gym in the morning with Ruuben, so I have to get some sleep now.

I decided to take pictures of as much car plaques with different state names as possible.

Washington D.C. calling

Monika from the Academy of Educational Development (organisation coordinating our program in DC) picked us and a Latvian, coming from a choire trip in Vienna, up and a Supershuttle bus took us to the hotel. Other Latvians had their reservations cancelled and the missed their flight from Munich. Hopefully, we'll see them today.



Monika is a very nice young lady, has her roots in Poland. On our way to the city she suggested us all sorts of places to eat and sights to see. She gave us our pocket money for the DC and a metrto card. The system seems to be easy. At least the metro plan seemed to be almost identical, but a smaller version of the Tube map in London. Looking out of the window, I was amazed, that everything seemed quite European: the cars, the trees, no skyscrapers. The city is only 9 square miles and has about 600 000 habitants. Houses are all in beige, brown or grey shades, a lot of green, everything is pretty.



After refreshing, we met up with the Estonians and the poor single Latvian, that had to listen to Estonian for the whole evening. We started to search for an organic food market called Whole Food Market, that Monika suggested. It was supposed to be a few blocks away from our hotel. On the first corner already we had a chance to experience the friendlyness of the Americans. A boy on the street started to giving us directions and we finally found the market. Best grocery shop I've ever seen for shore. They have everything organic: fruits, ready-made healthy food, smoothies, cookies, marshmellows, just everything. (Neti, I'll bring you something delicious from that shop ;).) We ate outside of the market, on the terrace and of course, made our first Starbucks visiting. We headed towards the Mall. No it isn't a shopping centre for those, who didn't know. It is the main street, that has all the Smithsonian museums. On our way we saw some penthouse parties, the Bank of America, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House. The city is amazingly beautiful, friendly and quiete, meaning not that crowded-noisy metropol that I was expecting from the USA. We walked back to our hotel. Chatted with the Latvian and just fell asleep between the white pillows.



The amazing trip has really now started and I'm already nervous about the program ending too soon, because I really like the city so far. We'll see what happens today. I'll try to blog every day.

High upon the sky

This post was written on the airplane.

Today is the day. We met with our Estonian delegation at the Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport at 5.30 am, excited and a bit sad to leave home. Tiiu was also there to send us off, very nice of her. First flight took about two and a half hours, ordinary, with airplane food. After landing in Munich, we walked around the airport, as our gate was not yet announced. Finally arriving at the gate, we were told, that the flight was overbooked, but we got our seats. Distance to destination- 2743 miles; time since departure- 3.07 is on my screen. Everyone’s sleeping and so should I, but I’m too excited, thinking about the three magical and busy weeks ahead of us. It really feels like I’m high upon the sky!

Palavaid tervitusi kodustele, perele ja sõpradele. Nautige Washongtonile omast kuumalainet Eestis ja maasikahooaega.