T - 16 days

The team at Cataract Gorge, Launceston, minus our fearless leader Mike.

With only 16 days until our departure we're making our final preparations for Sweden. Yikes! Where did all that time go?

It really doesn't seem like all that long since we were strangers at International House last year, trying hard to fight the early morning foggies with coffee so as to develop presentations on topics as obscure as terrorist platypuses. (Yes, they do exist. You have been warned).

But now, with only 2 weeks to go and a district conference, meetings and a term of language lessons behind us, it's hard to think of a time when we weren't friends.

It's been this friendship that has seen us through polishing of presentations, uniform buying (thank you, boys, for your patience as we treated you as our lifesize Ken dolls), selection of gifts and many a hilarious Swedish lesson. We've come through it all in extremely good humour which can only bode well for our upcoming trip.

It's been my pleasure to be part of such a tight-knit team - and we've only just begun!

Hi all - Jamie from the outbound Swedish GSE team here posting my first blog after taking the keys of my new Lexus from Lexus of Blackburn, sponsors of the Rotary District 9800 Conference in Launceston Tasmania. I knew the plug would pay off.

But wow - the Conference - how good was it? I know I speak for all of us in the GSE team when I say we had an incredible time.

And it's great to now know what a Rotary Conference is all about - just some of the things I learnt at the Rotary District 9800 conference in Launceston:

• Wilf is such a damn cool name.



• I never thought I would see 800 Rotarians giggling after being exposed to a bit of the "Wacky stuff"



• Bill and Melinda Gates are vulnerable to giant magnets. Muahahaha!



• A Bill of Rights has nothing to do with legislation covering non-left-handed people named William.



• A lot of male Rotarians are keen for me to bring them back a list of Swedish girls' phone numbers from our GSE trip.



• Two men with fake Russian accents, clad in Lycra and who constantly have their hands over each other needn't be dodgy.



• District Governors enjoy pretending they are Robbie Williams as much as the rest of us.



• Less than 20 hours sleep in 4 days can leave you speaking like the Swedish Chef at the flugen end of fligen it jurdy. Jurdy.



• Rotary International really is an incredible, world-bettering and life-changing organisation.

A personal highlight for me would be learning about the wonderful Eyes Wide Open program initiated by Lena Condos and Rotarians of the Rotary Club of Melbourne South. Lena was in the GSE team last year and has initiated a program that offers people of all ages (but especially school leavers, uni students, young professionals, etc.) the opportunity to make a difference whilst overseas on holidays instead of just doing the cliched thing of sitting on the beach, getting drunk and maybe visiting a temple.

Instead this program lets young people work with kids in orphanages in developing countries like Vietnam, teaching things like hygiene, English language skills and music. As well as this, participants can help build vital community infrastructure - things that will really make a difference in the world. And the kicker is that each one of these projects is a Rotary project - thus exposing those outside Rotary to just what Rotary does in the world - and hopefully encouraging them to continue their involvement in doing good in the world through Rotary.

Another highlight had to be spending time and exchanging "cultural insights" ("You mean you don't have Boags Draught in Sweden?!") with the fantastic Swedish District 2380 GSE Inbound Team - the girls were a lot of fun, and definitely outdanced and outsang us on the Abba tunes. We will really look forward to seeing them when we get over to Sweden - girls: "Vi saknar ni!" (We miss you!)

Thank you to each of our host clubs - The Rotary Clubs of Hawthorn, Southbank, Canterbury, Laverton Point Cook and Melbourne for making it possible for us to get down to the conference - and again thank you to all Rotarians for your generous support of the Rotary Foundation which makes the GSE experience a reality.

We really appreciated all the positive feedback we received in regard to our presentation too - I am still coming to terms with the fact that Switzerland and Sweden are not the same country, but somewhat glad we are not going on exchange to Bacchus Marsh. Not that there's anything wrong with Bacchus Marsh. Nice place.

So till next time, hejdå från mig!

Hurrah!

Photo: Lara McKinley

In addition to reading about our exploits, you're now able to see them, too!

We have set up a photo sharing account at Flickr that will feature not only our preparation for Sweden but all our adventures once there.

To check us out, click here.

Vi studerar Svenska

With a mere 6 weeks (or 44 days) remaining until our departure, preparations are well underway for our Swedish sojourn.

For the past 7 weeks we've been learning Swedish under the expert tuition of Birgit Huss at the Swedish Church in Melbourne. With the exception of Jamie, who already has a fair bit of Svenska under his belt, we were all novices to begin with but can now introduce ourselves, tell you the time, the weather conditions, our phone numbers and ask what time dinner is! We've tried a bit of it out on the Swedish GSE team - they promise us that we'll get better with practice.

To see if this was the case, we all met at the beautiful Astor cinema in St Kilda yesterday for entertainment and education as we took in the heartwarming Swedish film As It Is In Heaven. Not only did we all enjoy the film, we walked out rather proud of ourselves for understanding the occasional Swedish phrase - and without the subtitles, at that!

Looks like those Swedish lessons are starting to pay off...