A whole year?

The next crop

Last Saturday were the district interviews for next year's Rotary exchange candidates. Among the interviewers were Chloe and Anna Rae and they also talked about their experiences and answered questions from the group. This is an exciting time for the soon-to-be exchange students because they're waiting through the holiday season to find out where they'll be living next year.

Part of what Chloe does is dispel the myth that the kids shouldn't call home for months so they'll integrate into their new cultures without holding on to home. She told the group that, although they (Rotary) didn't want to hear it, she called home every day for the first few months and it was the best thing, for her, because it kept her grounded and was a small reassurance that this part of her world still existed. Knowing that freed her to immerse herself in her new life. I rarely called her, but let her call if she needed to. She never complained and never said she wanted to come home (but she did want all of her friends and family to move to Pamplona for the year). Mostly we just chatted about nothing in particular. It was understood that if she were ever to stay home just to call us that the phone calls would stop. She was mildly insulted at that: Yeah, like I wouldn't go out with friends or tour a cathedral just so I could stay home and call you. Blanket rules don't apply to everyone and for some kids calling home often would keep them from exploring their new surroundings. A student here last year talked to her parents almost every day and she was very happy to do so. It didn't hinder her integration into the American way of life, but she wouldn't make even the tiniest decisions without consulting them first. It made shopping a frustrating exercise: No, I'd better wait to talk to my parents tomorrow before I spend $8.00 on this pair of jeans that I absolutely love that originally sold for $75, even though my mother told me to buy new pants. Tomorrow, sweetheart, these jeans ain't gonna be here and you can afford them even at $75! On the other end of the spectrum, I talked to an adult who was an exchange student more than twenty years ago. She said she talked to her parents maybe a total of 40 minutes in seven months. And she liked it that way.

There's a new group of Rotary members on the exchange committee and some of the old suggestions seem to be disappearing. For example, Chloe's group was told to call home when they arrive and then not call home or e-mail for three months. They're also beginning to understand, based on last year especially, that cell phones are extremely important (if they're widely used where the student will be living). I didn't think the phone was that important when Chloe left, and not even so much when she'd tell me often that she really needed a cell phone. Not until I spent a week in Pamplona with her did I realize that a cell phone is all but necessary and is an efficient tool that will help the kids integrate into their new culture quickly. Kids with cell phones are often looked on disparagingly by older adults ("spoiled brats"), but they are a huge part of the culture that is such an important component of exchanges. For some reason new things, like cell phones, are often dismissed during all the highbrow talk of multicultural experiences. If I were to do this again I would make arrangements for a cell phone for my student as soon as possible. Almost all of them in Europe (not sure about other parts of the world) are prepaid so there is not a danger of your child ringing up hundreds of dollars in unexpected phone bills. Besides, they use them for text messaging much more than for talking because that's cheaper.

Chloe had fun interviewing and was happy to be able to answer questions. Partway through the day she had an overwhelming compulsion to get on a plane and go somewhere. That made me happy.

Getting it home

How to get mountains of stuff home for less than all the stuff is worth? It's not uncommon for family or friends to visit an exchange student. One way is to have them fill in the empty spots (ha!) of their luggage with some of your kid's treasures. Or, if they don't bring their allotted luggage allowance, they can bring one of your kid's suitcases home. That's what we're hoping will happen with Chloe. My mom and her friend will be visiting in May and will be leaving Pamplona for Madrid and their return flight home. Because they'll be at the end of their trip, Chloe's suitcases won't be too much trouble (I wouldn't ask them to schlep her suitcases around Spain and Portugal).

One idea now is that Chloe would accompany them back to Madrid, where they'd spend a few days and she'd be able to act as translator and amateur tour guide and help carry her luggage to the airport. She'd take a bus home to Pamplona after they left. Even if they do end up bringing their allowed two suitcases over with them, having them bring home Chloe's suitcases and paying the extra-baggage fee is cheaper than shipping or mailing the same amount home. We can't bring them with us because we won't be returing to Pamplona before we leave for home. One thing to consider when planning to use discount airlines (EasyJet, Ryan Air, etc.) is that they have much stricter luggage allowances. Ryan Air, for example, limits you to one 15-kilo bag (33 pounds) and one carry-on. Chloe's hair care products alone weigh half that.

I told Chloe about the plan and she said:

Remember that I can't miss too much school so it would have to be on a weekend.

It wouldn't be on a weekend because they fly home on a Wednesday.

Oh. Okay. I'll just miss school then.

Glad to know that she can be so easily swayed from her academic focus.

Travel tip

A tip from the packing seminar yesterday, one that I hadn't heard before: put a neighbor's address on your luggage ID tags. She said a security employee at SeaTac airport (not TSA, but security for the airport), interrupted one of her talks to say that one of his jobs is to walk around the airport to make sure people aren't collecting addresses off of suitcases. If a mom, dad, and two excited little kids are in line at the ticket counter to check their bags for their trip to Disneyland, it's a reasonably safe bet that no one will be home for the next several days at the address listed on their luggage tags. The neighborly thing to do, though, would be to ensure that your neighbor won't be gone at the same time.

Travel Fiesta

You'd think I was traveling someplace. I ordered a suitcase when I realized that I didn't have one big enough or sturdy enough to withstand three weeks of being dragged through Europe, been searching for good walking shoes that don't look like hand-me-downs from my grandma, been studying guidebooks, haunting travel forums, and today I went to Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door spring travel festival. Oh my. Here's what I wrote somewhere else:

His headquarters are in Edmonds, a charming town on Puget Sound north of Seattle. The place was overrun with ETBD fans. Parking was a nightmare. Restaurants were slammed. Parking time-limits were apparently not enforced (good thing for me). He has this festival every spring and I'm guessing that a considerable amount of time is spent with city employees and chamber of commerce members in meetings gearing up for the logistics of the event. I spent 45 minutes in the store, 30 of them waiting in line to pay for two small items, and there were five cashiers. The average take per customer was easily $100, probably more like $200, possibly even more. And that was just 30 minutes out of a ten-hour day (everything was 20% off). It was quite something. He sells his own European planning map for $4.95 (I bought one months ago), but today they were handing them out like rolling papers at a hemp festival (so I got another one). If nothing else, it's a great example of effective marketing. It can't be cheap to hold this event, but it obviously more than paid for itself. And you've never seen so many people so happy to be spending money on travel gear.

If you like his shows and his guidebooks and are ever near Edmonds, Washington, I highly recommend stopping by his store. It's warm and cozy, there is a library full of guidebooks and maps (not only his) and you're welcome to use any of them to plan your trip. The place is always happily buzzing with people sitting at tables, poring over those maps and books while planning their upcoming trips. And the people working there are full of invaluable advice. No, I have no connection with the company whatsoever.

It doesn't take long when hanging out in travel forums, looking for advice that will help to get the most out of an upcoming trip, to come across people who diss Rick Steves. They say he's a geek and make fun of his legion of loyal followers. But I find that a bit hypocritical. They pride themselves on bare-bones travel, on being independent, on doing their best to not look like tourists, on getting to know the natives while making fun of the people at the Holiday Inn up the street who've just piled out of a tour bus. They espouse diversity and cultural tolerance, yet they make fun of a fellow traveler who differs in his approach to travel chiefly because he dares to offer travel tours (7,000 people on 280 tours in 2005). They travel the world on very little money and trade tips on the best way to turn a paper clip and a hunk of dental floss into a multi-tool. Here's a guy who has turned his passion - travel - into a viable, respected business. He supports his family and is responsible for the livelihoods of many employees. As in so many cases like this, I think many of them are envious and would gladly trade places with him, as long as no one caught them enjoying clean clothes and a toilet they didn't have to share with the rest of the guests on the eighth floor.

Swag

I was just reading the unofficial Rotary Exchange message board and someone posted a question about getting pins to exchange (there are several good suggestions for making pins on that message board). One girl said she got a lot for free by writing to state offices and asking. She got lots from the Washington State Apple Commission and the Washington State Ferries. That's a great idea and I wish I would have seen it before Chloe left. She's spent a good part of her life on those ferries and a handful of free pins would have been a decent tradeoff for the years of commuting with churlish WSF employees (and no, they aren't all unpleasant).

If you know about the pin exchange, read no further. Rotary gives the students pins (or the students make their own) and they trade them with other exchange students whenever they meet. They pin them on their Rotary blazers and the idea is to collect enough stuff to make your blazer look like a circus exhibit. Usually the pins are enamel lapel pins with the Rotary district or club name on them. It's not looking like Chloe's going to have much interaction with Rotary in Spain so she may not get a chance to exchange a lot of pins. But I read one post by a girl who made over 200 before she left and needed more.

Necessary items

If you’re keeping track of things to pack for your year abroad if you have room, Chloe begged me to send her her yearbook. She had it packed but we took it out because of weight and it seemed to be one of the more expendable items (it's a small school and the book weighs 2-1/2 pounds). She said it’s the one thing she really, really wishes she’d brought so she can show her new friends her old friends. And, I suspect, pore over when she gets lonely.

So much stuff

Your child, your grandchild, your best friend, your next-door neighbor, your niece is leaving for a foreign country to go to school for a year. Naturally, you want to buy gifts, something to remember you by, a journal or a photo album, maybe a teddy bear. You’ve put a lot of effort into choosing just the right gift, something meaningful that will provide comfort to the student through those dark periods of homesickness.

Don’t. The student has spent the past two weeks taking things out of her suitcase(s) and is quite certain that it is impossible to survive on what’s left, even though it’s still one pound over the maximum weight allowance. She’s pared it down to less than the absolute essentials and you come over the day before departure and give her more gifts and now she has to feel guilty because she can’t take the lovely scrapbook that you painstakingly crafted by hand that honors every one of her cherished moments since kindergarten.

Sure, she can just pay extra to carry more stuff. But chances are she’ll have to pay extra at least twice if she has to change planes or has a stopover outside of the US (depends on the country and the airline). She can buy a lot of stuff there for the several hundred dollars she’ll have to pay to bring stuff she doesn’t really need. But it will probably be her first lesson in converting Euros to dollars: just how many dollars is 130 Euros?* Then she’ll buy more stuff while she’s there and have to ship some of it home, which costs more money.

What to do? Jewelry, maybe, or money, money, money. Her parents can deposit it in her bank account while she’s gone and she can access it with her debit card. She can buy postcards and small gifts to send to you. She can buy a shirt that blends in instead of screaming American. She can treat her new friends to a Coke or go to a movie, maybe buy a library card or stamps to send home postcards (it costs Chloe 95 cents to send a postcard from Spain to the US).

You try it: get out two suitcases, no more than 106” total, width x height x length for both suitcases combined and, if you’ll have a stopover in Europe, no more than 44 pounds in each suitcase (20 kilos, and other regions may have different limits, usually less). Now pack about 10 months worth of what you’ll need to be comfortable. Good luck.

*Around $160 US dollars as of this moment.

Baggage weight

In the basic information from Rotary it says that you’re allowed 70 pounds per suitcase and gives the maximum dimensions for both bags combined. The travel agent also tells you to call the airlines to make sure, especially if you’ll be changing planes somewhere other than in the US.

If you’re ticketed all the way through to your final destination, you usually get the full 70 pound allowance within Europe (even if changing planes), even though the standard European allowance is only 44 pounds per bag (20 kilos). It might be even less in some countries other than in Europe.

But I called Iberia Airlines just in case, because Chloe has a stopover in Madrid (which I learned is different than a layover) and because I’ve learned to not trust anything printed because these things change so often. Even though all of her flights are on the same itinerary, because she’s spending two nights in Madrid (hence, the stopover and not layover), she has to go by the European allowance from Madrid to Pamplona. Both of her bags weighed 48 pounds on the United scales at the airport. If they enforce it strictly, she shouldn’t have to pay too much for the overage. Iberia says it’s 1% of the highest adult fare per kilo. I have no idea what that might come out to, but she’s only 3.6 kilos over. If they balk at the extra kilos, Chloe said she’s going to cry first and then, if necessary, hand over her debit card.

One of the kids who left Seattle yesterday goes from Madrid to Barcelona, but I don’t know by which airline. He didn’t call the airline and one bag is almost 70 pounds and the other is over 50. The host families over there are going to be a bit surprised because all of their kids were allowed only two bags at 20 kilos each. We’re hoping that Chloe and A2’s bags all fit in the car together.

So, again, if it could cost you extra money or in some way negatively affect your trip, never trust anything printed. Call, then call again. Even then, you’ll often get a different answer each time you ask. If you find your answer on their Web site (never trust third-party Web sites for vital information), print it out and take it with you. I’ve heard, “Well, then, Rotary should have to pay because they’re the ones who told us how much we could bring.” But Rotary also told you to call and double check.

One party down

That's Chloe, Anna Rae (France), Ben (Argentina), Mallory (Brazil), and Andy (Italy). Out of five kids from Vashon going on an exchange next year, not one of them comes from a family that supports George Bush. Coincidence? Is it the kind of kid who seeks such an adventure? That they come from the liberal, insular community of Vashon Island or come from off-island but have parents who send them to school there? We talked about people questioning our decisions to let our kids go away for a year. Turns out the response I’ve been giving is universal: “How can we not?”

We had a lovely picnic, the kids exchanged e-mail addresses and said goodbye, and the parents exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together periodically while the kids are gone. We took some pictures and will give one or two to the Vashon yearbook advisor for next year.

One of the boys from Vashon who is going to Argentina just found out that he has mono and won’t be leaving tomorrow as planned. He doesn’t know if Argentina will let him go in six weeks or maybe not until January. I can only barely imagine how disappointed he must be and even at that I can hardly stand to think about it. At least with Chloe’s situation and A’s current visa problems, there were things we could do, other avenues to explore. There is absolutely nothing he can do about this except wait for it to run its course. From what I’ve heard, unless my child was passionate about going to Argentina, I would strongly suggest another country. The visa requirements sound too arbitrary and amorphous, yet stringent. I expect other countries to follow suit if the US continues to make it so difficult for their citizens to get a visa to come here.

I told Chloe a while ago that a map of the US would be a good thing to take so she can show people where she lives in relation to things they’ll recognize, like New York and California. I’ll draw an outline of Spain on it to show the difference in size of the two countries. One of the returning students said she wished she’d taken such a map.

Still no word from the Seattle district or the Vashon club on whether or not they’ll write that letter so A can get her visa.