Tag 7, Day 7

Today was my first Rotary meeting in Gifhorn-Wolfsburg! It was great! On the way to the meeting, because Ruediger is also the YEO for our club, we picked up Ryan from Familie Wiese (from Seattle, Washington) and Onesimo from Familie Hagenah (from Mexico!) along the way. They are both very nice! We arrived a little early because Ruediger had to meet with some people before the actual meeting started and so Ekkhard Musick took the three of us out to "Eis" in Gifhorn. He told us a bit about Gifhorn, where he lives. He was so excited to meet me too because he said the Rockford Gifhorn-Wolfsburg exchange is very important to his club and he's so happy that young people are now involved. I told him that it is also very important to my club and that everyone says "Hallo!". After Eis, we returned to the meeting building. Gifhorn is a beautiful little town with typical German buildings and the meeting building was just as beautiful! Everyone was so nice, we introduced ourselves and shook everyone's hand. Ekkhart told everyone that I'm from our sister club, Rockford and they all were very excited. We then all sat down and the meeting began, Ruediger introduced us all, "ladies first" of course haha. I stood up, he told them who I was, where I was from and then said I would say "Hello" in German and so I said "Hallo" because I lost all words and they all laughed because they thought it was funny so I just smiled and laughed with them. In the car, we had "rehearsed" I would say, "hello I'm happy to be here and thank you" and It's not that I was nervous, I wasn't at all actually, everything was in German and so I wasn't sure exactly what he had said x). He then introuced the other two and they both did the same thing "Hallo" because they think I know what I'm doing because Ruediger told them I already speak really good German and I can help them so I thought that was actually really funny. Then we ate dinner which was some fish and rice (very good, like all German food) and then the meeting began afterwards. The governer was at the meeting today too! The meeting lasted about an hour and a half and it was pretty interesting but it was all in German so us exchange students couldn't really understand most of it. After the meeting, we all drove home and went to bed (except for me because I'm on the computer waiting for my ipod to charge because I need a wecker! Becauseeeee tomorrow, we go to Berlin at 7:30! So I must wake up at 6 and my ipod right now is my only wecker so maybe I will get a new one soon :)) Gute Nacht!