here are the kids from yesterday

coming to you live from Ueda...Nagano Japan

pictures from tonight...

made it to japan

i made it to japan!!!! it is great here. my host family is wonderful and everyone is so nice. of course i am one of the tallest people. i will try and write more later right now i am at an internet cafe and my host dad is waiting for me.

are we there yet???

so i have had a few gaps with my blog but i am trying....LOL. anyways it is 2am and i am sitting on my bedroom floor thinking about all the things i need to do before i go to japan. i can not believe we are leaving in 24hrs!!!! oh my gosh. i am so excited yet very nervous. i guess it is all hitting me know that i am really going to japan for 6 weeks.

i have to admit...i think we have the longest travel day in history. here goes let's see if i can remember it all:

saturday 7pm host drop off at carrol college in waukesha wi.
sunday 2am depart from waukesha and head to chicago
sunday 430am arrive to o'hare international airport
sunday 7am depart chicago and head to dallas
sunday 12pm depart dallas for osaka japan
monday 12pm arrive in osaka
monday 2 pm ride in a bus for 2 hours
stay the night in osaka
tuesday 530am wake up to take an 11 hour bus rude
tuesday 430pm arrive in nagasaki
tuesday 6pm host pick up with a family that will probably not speak any english.

am i crazy or will this be a story i tell my grandkids about one day???

ok i better get to bed since i have a million and 1 things to do tomorrow.

please email me or call me if you read this before i leave. i would love to hear from everyone.

email: cdickhans@hotmai.com cell: 336.473.0199 skype name: cdickhans

minnesota state fair

on our free day my host mom kathleen and my host sister sarah took mariana and i to the minnesota state fair. we had a lot of fun eating as many things on a stick as we could. as you can see we took a tons of photos once again.....i love finding the rice kristy bars...we just had to try one of those. :) i think the strangest thing i saw all day was the 90lb square of butter that they then carve into the heads of the diary princesses...and what would you do with 90lbs. of butter once the fair is over???because yes you do get to keep your head.

 

dinner at cliff and jen's house in minneapolis

minneapolis was a great week because my real mom came to visit!!! I also got to visit with my godparents and their daughter and her boyfriend. my mom, ann, and i all went out to dinner on tuesday night and enjoy some girl talk. then on thursday night jen and cliff invited us over for dinner. what a blast!!! i loved all the wine!!! the food was amazing also....my first ever turkey burger. that is my kind of dinner party. jen and cliff you guys would have been awesome host parents. i will have to remember that for when i come to minneapolis again.

i told cliff that i would put him on my webpage...so here you go. sorry it has taken me so long to do it.....i have been a slacker lately.




 

kansas city pictures

 

North Platte Pictures

I just figured out how I can make collages....I am so excited!!!! 

kansas city.ks/mo

the 5 hour bus ride from north platte to kansas city seemed to go by really fast. amazing when you are with 80 people how time flies.

it was great to see beata again once we arrived to kansas city.i hadn't seen her for a month. we gave each other a hug and smiled at each other and we both knew it was going to be a fun week. beata assigned me to stay with dale and elaine gustafson. dale is actually an uwp people alumni. the gustafson were awesome. they have three kids...grant, greta and grey. i loved having host brother and sisters....my roommate for this week was emilie from beligium. we hadn't really had time to catch up in north platte so it was so nice to share a room with her.

the week was full of memories .....

playing with kids
g is for grant, greta and grey
staying in a 6 year olds room
going swimming
working at harvester food bank
cleaning eggs
sorting household goods
hunger banquet and only getting a plate of rice for dinner
painting highway barriers at american royal
hanging out at the pool with emilie
sharing music between 2 countries....and 2 languages
dinner with leona, lisa, emily and patrick
seeing why kansas city's name is "the city of fountains"
gus and amber
gus almost braking his leg
seeing "rent"
figuring out that matt hydzik was in "rent"
going to the bar with my host mom and dad
learning a 60's medley that we will sing at the dakota bowl
my first show
5000 people = 1000 people
" can you babysit us " - grey
" do you know green is my favorite color " - greta
" man i want to do this when i grow up " - grant
" you can use anything in my room that you want" - greta
host mom = host sister

all and all it was a great week.....though i was pretty tired all week. i think advance work catches up with you the week after..

off to the twin cities

north platte. nebraska

so i have been so slack in my blog that i need to go through and just tell you what i have been doing in each city.....so here goes..

north platte was a very fun city since khan, sam and i set it up....the cast arrived on monday august 7th and went bowling. everyone had a blast and i was amazed at how many people had never been bowling before.

tuesday was regional learning day ...this is when we all learn something about the community that we are in. since we were in north platte we decided to concentrate on the canteen. in north platte during the 40's and world war 2 a bunch of trains came through because that is where the soldiers switched trains to either go east or west. well one night there was mistake in who was coming on the train so everyone in the town brought food to the soldiers that they thought would be from their area. it turns out these soldiers were from kansas....well instead of wasting the food they decided to give the food to the soldiers and that is what started to canteen. the idea was to treat every soldier that came through north platte as a son or daughter so everyone donated food. they would feed over 8000 soldiers a day...and everything was donated by local farmers!! amazing...especially during the time of rations. anyways.....we decided to watch the canteen spirit documentary ( really good if anyone ever wants to watch ) and then have 2 people come and talk to us about the canteen ( two ladies that helped during the canteen ) after the talk we surprised the cast with a "real" canteen....even dressed in 40's outfits and uniforms. the really cool thing was that we made it on to the front page of the paper....above the fold and in color....

tuesday night was bingo night with doris....the lady i met on the minivan ride to north platte. one of the sweetest ladies ever. ( she was the speaker for the canteen..she was a volunteer). doris lives in the highest building in north platte....11 stories.....the retirement community. i thought it was funny when the bingo pot was maximum $8...

wednesday and thursday were community service days but since i was on the advance team i could not do either of the community service projects. i had to make sure that everything was running smooth in my city. wednesday night we went to cody ranch which is buffalo bill's ranch for dinner. it was very cool. i never knew buffalo bill lived in north platte nebraska. we had a fun time exploring the ranch and also seeing a buffalo bill impresonator. ( i knew he was going to be there, but the cast didn't so it was a fun surprise. )

friday night we had most of the staff over to dinner to celebrate the week and also for them to have a home cooked meal since they were in the hotel all week. we had a really good time and it was a nice way for me to get to know the staff better.

saturday was show day and boy was it awesome to see the show. it was so excited to see everyone perform and i could not believe those were my friends that i left 2 weeks ago. they were amazing. it looked like a whole new cast. what a great job at practice. sam, khan and i were amazed that the show sold out!!! how cool is that...sell out on the first city. we also raised 9100 dollars for our community partner for the week..the connection ( a homeless shelter ) after the show we our our review for advance team work....overall we had an awesome review. what a great week. everything ran smooth so we were happy.

sunday was our day to relax...we went back to jim and annette's lake house. this time instead of just sam, khan, and i there with our host families the whole staff was there. once again it was fun to get to know everyone. we went rode on the jet ski and i even went water skiing. i have not done that in years....i think the last time i was water skiing was in the ohio river with sarah holton. we had another awesome dinner at the lake and every one shared their stories from the week.

monday was travel day...i was off to my first city. kansas city!!! pretty emotional day saying goodbye to everyone that i had lived with for 3 weeks. just want to say thanks for everything north platte.