Is this all real? ... Oh its real alright :D

Wow! It’s all becoming so real. I, Chantel Ouellet, am going to be spending a year, in Thailand, 13556 kilometres away, by myself. It is slowly sinking in that despite what I thought earlier, in the year, my world is not going to end when I leave my friends and family. I am also now accustomed to the fact that next year I won’t be here and that there are 574 days left until I get to return the slopes for some snowboarding.  So now that I have become comfortable about the whole exchange, its time to get excited.

               Last Thursday, I travelled down to Ottawa for a Rotary Weekend! It was amazing. My weekend started at 6am on Thursday when, I left my house to pick up Stephanie, Sam and Julie. After a quick stop at Tim Horton’s we headed to the bus depot for a seven hour drive. We stopped all around picking up all the inbounds and outbound for a joyous and exciting reunion. For some of the inbounds this would be their last weekend together.

                 We arrived at Ottawa U later that afternoon and dropped all of our stuff off and got room assignments. I roomed with Toey from Thailand, and that was exciting! We went over my Thai speech a few times, and she said I was doing really well, but I doubt that. Then we went out to a Chinese buffet for dinner, where everyone was trying new foods like calamari, sushi, frog legs and even green tea ice-cream.  After a full and satisfying meal we all headed back to Ottawa U for the Jacket Ceremony and unfortunately the dreaded speeches.  
             Now, first off let me say, I have never been so worried for a speech before. I had read my speech a million times to anyone, who would listen and even to those who wouldn’t listen. I was so scared I was sweating and shaking and well, I was a mess. I am a good public speaker, but speaking to the public in Thai was completely out of my element. 

So picture it, 50 some odd people crammed into a tiny university common room, with now air conditioning. It was hot.  So all the outbound, (that’s me) went up one by one to receive our bright red rotary blazers. That was fun and exciting but then the tension grew.  As the Rotarians explained the situation, each outbound was to present a five to six minutes speech in the language of their host country. Everyone seems to hold their breath waiting anxiously for their turn to approach the challenge. When asked who wants to go first, I exploded in a furry of action, putting my hand up and saying, “I’LL GO!” I had to go the pressure was killing me. So up I saunter, nearly tripping on every person I passed. I stand there look out and take a deep breath. I think don’t worry no body understands what you are saying and your going first so there are no comparisons. Drenched in sweat, pierced with fear, I start. 

The feeling when I finished my speech was amazing. I DID IT! I presented a six minute speech in Thai a language I cannot speak and judging by the reactions, I did well.    Unfortunately, there were still 15 more speeches to go and an hour and a half crammed in a tiny sauna/common room.

 The next two days we had the opportunity to tour Rideau hall, the war museum, the parliament buildings, the museum of civilisation and the Supreme Court. I really enjoyed showing the inbounds these key elements of our country.  It made me think about what I am going to do in Thailand, getting to see all their important national sites.

 Saturday night, we went on a haunted ghost tour of an old jail that has now been turned in to a hostel. It was really interesting because the ghost stories had an element of realism, due to the fact the jail had been shut down due to inhumane treatment. Another scary feature of the jail was the fact that it had gallows that had been used for public hangings and a bar that was thought to be in place for private unjustified hangings. That was for sure my favourite tour.

Another tour that ranked really high was the Diefenbunker Tour just because I had never heard of it and the whole concept was so foreign to me. The Diefenbunker is a bunker built by Prime Minister Diefenbunker during the cold war, for the government to hide out if there ever was an attack. The idea behind it was to create a place when are government would remain intact and still be able to govern our nation even though we were in a state of panic. The Diefenbunker, was legit insane. So you’re driving in this little field and you came across a shed. Just and ordinary metal shed. Looks like it could be used to store tractors or something. But you go inside and there is this crazy long tunnel, which you follow in to a huge compound, all underground.  There were four floors and amongst those your could find, a hospital, a cafeteria, a “ situation room”, a store, a lounge area and rooms for everyone to live if the bunker was ever used. Did I mention it was huge? Their cafeteria was bigger than my cafeteria at school and nicer! Yet the bunker was built in the 1960’s and then not used and my school also built in the 1960’s in used everyday.   The bunker was super cool though just because it made you question, do you know what 70 feet beneath your feet is? Probably not.

  One of the coolest things about this weekend was how much we all bonded and grew, through our sharing circles and through our experiences. I now know that if i ever need some to talk to or am visiting another country, I have a whole family from around the world of exchange students that I can turn too.

 Oh and one last thing I cannot forget to tell you all about was how amazing we are at singing. It became our group challenge to write and perform as many songs as we could and if I might say so my self we were good :D  So thank you to all of our amazing songwriters, thanks to all of my fellow exchange students. I love you all!

So all in all it was an amazing weekend, that I am sure I will never forget. I am so excited for my exchange and this weekend has just made me that much more excited. Thanks for supporting me through this amazing experience and reading my Blog. I will continue to update when exciting things happen.

Xoxo

 Chantel <3



 oh check out my friend Beth's video she made about our Ottawa trip :D Beth is from Huntsville and will be going to FRANCE next year :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY9moTGMQzA