Rotary International Convention Hamburg: Day 1
On the first day of the Rotary International Convention in Hamburg we left pretty early in the morning from our youth hostel and headed an hour north into the city of Hamburg. We were dropped off in the harbor area where boats with the Rotary flag and Rotary motto were represented. I found it really cool and well thought through that the Rotary represented itself and themed their “advertising” around the city in unique ways (but also very fitting). Here we had a little bit of free time before taking a boat tour around the Harbor. This time was mostly used to take pictures.
After out freetime we took a boat tour around the Harbor. Our tour guide explained the different companies, (shipping companies, yacht companies, cruise ship companies, etc.) and how they worked, as well as brought us into the canals of the city. This was pretty interesting although it was difficult to understand some of the things the tour guide was trying to explain about the Harbor because I have never used this type of vocabulary before.
Once the tour was finished we headed to the main building of the conference. Here we would be meeting up with many other districts of exchange students and practicing the opening flag ceremony. In the opening flag ceremony each exchange student (that is participating) holds a country’s flag. We all enter the building holding the flag and walk through the crowd towards the stage. Once we get to the stage we then say our country’s name. I have been in a couple flag ceremonies before however, this one was definitely the most professional and important. This ceremony was not only going to be in front of thousands (about 10 thousand or so) people, but you are also representing a whole country (where there are people in the crowd who have traveled across the whole world to be at that convention). It was quite an intimidating task. You have to make sure you’re representing their country well (speaking loud, clear, and with enthusiasm) and pronouncing the name correctly. I had the country Ghana. Rennen had Israel, and Javier had Jordan. We practiced for about 4 hours (twice completely through).
After the practice, we were really tired and headed back onto the bus. This time another tour guide got on and we now did a second tour of Hamburg, this time by land. I really love the Hamburg city and think it is really pretty. The architecture was absolutely stunning and the landscape, I find, quite unique. While many kids were too tired to really pay attention to this tour, Javier and I enjoyed looking out the window at all the buildings and talking about how pretty they are (also how was have to work hard so that we can become rich enough to afford living it a city like this one). After the tour was over we headed back to the small village we were staying in and ate dinner at a Chinese Restaurant. Usually Asian Restaurants in Germany are not good. This one however, was delicious. I have been craving Asian cuisine since I left the US (because I usually eat Asian food twice a month) and this really hit the spot.
That is basically everything that happened on the first full day of our Hamburg trip. After Chinese food we walked back to our Hostel (and found a flower wall on the way) to hang out before going to bed. We went to sleep pretty early (still like 1:30am) as the next day we had to wake up at 4:30am to start getting ready for the conference.
