Hello Tim, I hope everybody is okay! I thought I’d give the club some updates on what I’ve been up to ️

G’day mates!

I hope you all are fine and staying safe. My life in isolation has been pretty boring, especially compared to all the great things I’ve been able to do while I was with you guys... I miss hearing the ocean in the morning and going for a walk along the beach with the dogs a lot. And of course I miss seeing my new Aussie friends and the club members, but we all had to sacrifice some things, so I’m trying to stay positive!

 

I’ve been cooking a lot and now that we’re going into summer, I also spent a lot of the time outside. Yesterday I went for a swim in the river, but the water was still freeeezing:/ it is not the beach, but again I’m trying to see the good things. The regulations in Switzerland were lifted, we’re now allowed to go to restaurants and bars again, groups up to 300 people are allowed from next week and all of the schools will return on Monday. We still need to keep our distance but the normality us starting to come back a little. As far as I know, the borders to Austria, Germany and France open again next week as well, so I might even get to see my family in the Netherlands for summer break...

 

I’m still thinking about Australia a lot and I know I was very blessed to be hosted by such a wonderful club like you are!! I’ll send you some more updates once my life gets a little more interesting again and I hope you all are taking care of one another!!

 

Lots of love from Mary

 

 

 

 

This week incoming President Gerard Barker revealed the banner for the new Rotary Year.  Incoming R.I. President Holger Knaack has adopted the slogan ‘Rotary Opens Opportunity’ underneath the internationally recognised symbol for opportunity; three vacant cubicles in a public toilet.  We look forward to a great year Gerard.

 

 

Jann once again kindly sent us this report.  Again Jann sent a whole host of photos, most of which I can't open.  So once again I apologise for their absence.  

 

May has been a rather relaxing month for me. It wasn’t as slow and boring as April, when

nothing happened, and wasn’t as action packed as the first few months, with school, the

language and everything new. Now that I have some idea how thing run here, these

recaps with photos I hope to make a weekly or biweekly thing, now that more is

happening. Let me recap what I did in the month of May in Germany.

 

The first 2-3 weeks were normal, no school, no soccer, not really much going on. On the

17th was my 16th Birthday however. I got a few friends to come over and we had a BBQ

around the fire in the back yard and had a good time. It was nice to meet up with them

after not seeing them for a few months almost. I then changed my host family the day after

and settled in with them fairly well. The dad is my soccer coach and the son is one of the

players in the team. We often watch Bundesliga together. Then school went back on the 28th and I go to school once a week. We have 10 people in a classroom and the teachers

change classes, we stay. School has gotten easier. I can now SLOWLY (big emphasis

there) texts in class. I read about half with understanding 80% of it in the time everyone

finishes. This is the same but reversed in English class. So overall a very enjoyable month,

with action but at a pace I can manage start life here again in Germany.

 

These two photos show when I went to visit my Uncle and my Auntie and cousins in Kiel. We organised the trip and I had a great time with them. On the right, I even tried a segway board that they had. After not seeing them for over 5 years, I was really happy to reunite with them. We are planning to catch up again sometime and also go to my grandparents for Christmas, which should be great fun.

 

 

 

In all, this was been my favourite month so far, with the activities I did and school going back. Hopefully you have learnt a bit about what I have been up to recently.

 

Last week we enjoyed our first face to face board meeting since the end of the shutdown.  Tim was once again a wonderful host, with smoked meats laid on.  Unfortunately for Tim, the arrival of board members interrupted some quiet reading he was doing at home.  If you are like me, you had no idea this sort of magazine existed, but somehow always knew that this is exactly the sort of thing Tim reads at home.

 

 

Of course, this is the closest many of us will come to a cray for the time being.  Tim announced the other day that he is about to eat the last of the five crayfish he donated to our postponed auction.  I assume we just calculate the current market value of five crayfish and send Tim a bill.

 

 

Pip and Macca are both thinking along the same lines.  With Golf permitted again, our roads have never looked in better shape.  Remember, Vic Roads does not classify it as a pothole unless you need to use a sand wedge to get out of it.  Failing to use the rake incurs a $454 fine.

 

 

 

In the Netherlands they have introduced a program called ‘nude streets’ to improve road safety.  It is a real thing – look it up.  Of course things that work in Europe don’t always translate into American society, as Pip Ritchie discovered this week.