August 2, 2004
Our arrival day in Washington,
DC for the Fulbright orientation. We flew on Delta connecting thru Cincinnati. Our flights left on time and went smoothly until just outside of DC where there was
a heavy rainstorm and we had to circle for almost an hour more. We almost had to land in Baltimore,
but luckily it cleared enough for a DC landing.
Fulbright Central was set up at the Radisson
Hotel in Alexandria, VA. All the Fulbright teachers and
dependants were staying at the Radisson or their sister hotel, the Holiday Inn about a block away. Those with children stayed
at the Holiday Inn where it was more “family friendly”. Most US
teachers were arriving on Tuesday, but because we bought our tickets so far in advance, we only knew of the August 2nd
date. That was the day the international teachers were arriving.
Rick and I were quite impressed with the
accommodations and setup Fulbright had organized for this week. They had an information desk set up in the Radisson lobby,
which was there throughout the week. Even though the US teachers
were not intended to arrive until Tuesday, we were offered the dinner snack provided to the international teachers that was
available that entire evening. Going to the banquet room for our dinner, we ran into Berny and Sophie Macchi– Sophie
is the other Swiss teacher (there are only two from Switzerland
exchanging in the US) who will be exchanging with Terry Vincent,
from Cary, Illinois. Such a coincidence that the two Swiss
teachers will be living in the US only 45 minutes from each
other! We all spent the rest of the evening chatting together until Berny had to get to bed as he was so tired from traveling
all day with no sleep that he was at the point of feeling sick!
Tuesday, August 3
Breakfast was from 7-8am, buffet style at the convention center at the Holiday Inn. That would be where all our meals would
take place from now on. We all wore name tags around our necks – green for the teachers and yellow for their dependants.
Everyone’s name tag said where they were from, their name, and where they were going. That morning Rick and I took a
walk into the town of Alexandria – the historic center, which was within
walking distance to our hotel. We needed to bring one of our large duffle bags to a repair shop to get one of the seams re-stitched,
as it had split a little in transit and we didn’t want it splitting completely open during the flight to Milan.
It was very hot and humid. We really enjoyed all the historic red brick buildings in the area, many being built in the late
1700’s. We found the repair shop and told them we’d pick up the bag on Friday.
After lunch at the Holiday Inn, a bus tour
of Washington was scheduled at 1:30.
There were 4 large, comfortable coach buses with a tour guide in each waiting to take us. Now, I thought this tour would be
mostly on the bus – just to get a glimpse of the area, but we were impressed at what we were able to see in the short
afternoon that we had. We first went to the Korean War memorial. We left the bus to walk around the 7 foot steel statues of
soldiers, made to look like they were wading thru the rice paddies of Korea,
and then a long black wall with many of the faces of actual men lasered into the polished marble. The photos of the faces
were taken from newspapers articles depicting the war at that time.
Next we went to the Lincoln
memorial. I was impressed to see how many monuments can be seen from one spot. We saw the reflecting pools, the Washington
monument and the capital all lined up in view. We all climbed to the top of the steps. From there we went to the Franklin
Roosevelt memorial, which was much larger than we expected. There were a number of different out-door “rooms”
depicting different aspects of his life and the times, interspersed with pools and waterfalls. From this monument we walked
to the newly opened WWII memorial. It was very large, and our tour guide explained the significance of all the symbolism.
(Our tour guide narrated information on all the sites and during our ride on the bus.)
We were all quite hot and tired by that time, and fortunately the bus had pulled over to where we were in order to
board and continue. Our last stop was the white house. I never expected it to be right in the middle of this urban area of
DC! The front lawn was beautiful, and we were fortunate for a nice day, despite the heat and humidity.
It was back to the hotel, where we only
had 45 minutes to shower and get dressed for our opening dinner. By this time all the teachers and their families in the entire
program had arrived. At each meal it was so much fun to sit with new people and to hear about their excitement about going
to their new countries. There were so many countries! We met people going to Finland,
the UK, France,
Latvia, Estonia,
Romania, Hungary,
Czech Republic, Senegal,
Ghana, South Africa,
Chili, Peru, Columbia,
Mexico, Canada
and many others, not to mention all the teachers from those countries going to the US!
The opening dinner had a couple of speakers who gave some great talks – and not too long! The dinner was delicious!
Salad, salmon, potatoes, and vegetables. Just by chance, I said “Let’s sit right here – it was a table with
a couple and their daughter already seated – and they happened to be the Swiss alumni! So we had a head start talking
with them about their year in Switzerland a year ago. It was
great to meet them! After the dinner, there was a dessert reception in the lobby where we could mingle with everyone.
Wednesday, August 3
Now the heavier schedule began. We all
had a complete schedule of who should be where. There were meetings for the teachers (sometimes split into US or international
teachers), some for the spouses, some for both, and times to meet with a Fulbright alum who had already experienced teaching
in the country to which we were going. During the spouses meeting, we had to get up and introduce ourselves, say where we
were from and where we were going. When I say Lugano, Switzerland,
there were sighs from the others – who knew how beautiful a place it was! I
then said “now don’t all come and visit at the same time!”
During the introductions, I man stood up
and said he was from Kuopio, Finland.
I knew then that he was the husband of the Finnish woman that Rick was first paired with! So after the meeting, I went and
introduced myself. Of course they knew nothing of the story of us almost going to Finland,
so he was so surprised. He wanted his wife to hear the story, so we made plans to eat together that evening.
There was even child care for all the children
on these days so the parents could attend the meetings. There was a seminar on the art of crossing cultures, times for everyone
to meet with their alums, a time for one-on-one partner discussions, and for me (Gail) a session where a panel of previous
Fulbright spouses shared their experiences. Before dinner Rick and I went for a swim at the Holiday Inn pool to cool off and
get some exercise after sitting most of the day. As usual, lunch and dinner were at the Holiday Inn convention center. We
ate with Harry and Ari and their family, and also the family with whom they were exchanging. The Finnish family will be going
to California, of which they are very happy, but the California
family said “you mean we could have gone to Lugano???!!” We were very lucky to put Switzerland
as our first choice!
Thursday, August 4
Breakfast has been earlier these last couple
of days, between 6:30 and 8am. Rick and
Berny had sessions to attend after breakfast, and I had some free time, which I spent trying to get a wireless internet connection
but to no avail! Fulbright had a conference room set up with 10 computers for us to use, but with about 600 people it was
difficult to ever find the room without a line waiting to use them, and the one day I did, the system promptly went down 2
minutes into my turn! So I’ve had to take a break from the internet this week.
I had another spouse meeting where we talked
about car insurance, banking and the like. In between other seminars on US tax law for US
citizens working abroad and one on other administrative matters, like health insurance, we had open times to meet with our
partner and also the Swiss alum if needed.
Later in the afternoon we met with Berny
to finalize the car contract and go over some of the many details of living in each other’s houses. I also had Berny
go over the basic greeting phrases with us, so we didn’t sound too stupid once we arrived!
This evening was our farewell dinner. I
must say that all week, Sophie was always amazed at the amount of food that Berny could eat! He’d usually eat a lot
at breakfast, skip lunch, and eat a big dinner. That night, as we were ending our meal, the fire alarm went off, sending everyone
to wait outside. Berny was trailing behind. A minute later he comes walking outside with his huge plate of pasta – no
way was he going to leave it inside! We were all laughing at him! The fire trucks came, and a number of us were having our
pictures taken with the firemen in front of the truck (it was a false alarm).
After dinner we had a sharing of cultures.
Most of the representatives from the other countries did something short that represented their country, either a dance or
song. The best one by far was Canada. They did a rap song
that they made up – blowing into their hands like they were warming them up and singing “It’s cold, c-c-c
cold in Canada” with 3 of the girls sneezing into Kleenex
in sync! It sure had everyone laughing! All the performances were enjoyable, but some could have been shorter, as the evening
lasted longer than expected, and I was very tired!
Friday, August 6
Today was the day everyone left for their
assignments, or some went back home with their partners for a few days to get them acclimated before going overseas. Rick
and I were not leaving until Saturday, since I couldn’t get a free ticket out on Friday. We had breakfast with Berny
and then watched him off for Chicago at 11am.
We decided to spend some time with Sophie before she left at 1pm, so she wouldn’t
be alone. We enjoyed the final lunch provided by Fulbright – there were only about 20-30 of us left at that meal. We
sat at the table with Michael Kuban, our Washington Fulbright representative. We found out that there were about 700 applications
for a Fulbright exchange that year, and about 500 were accepted. But of those, only about 120 were matched with 1 year assignments.
We realized how difficult it was to get our assignment in Switzerland,
so we truly feel extremely fortunate!
After lunch we chatted with Sophie in the
lobby of the hotel, and then waved her off to Chicago. Rick and I then took a
walk into town to pick up our duffle bag which we had dropped off on Monday to be repaired. It was a beautiful day with a
cool breeze. The downtown of Alexandria was much larger than we thought, so we
had a very nice long walk. Since we were tired from a lack of sleep, we went back to the hotel for a nap.
In the evening, we set out again to find
a bite to eat. The hotel was empty and it seemed like we were the only ones left – it was a very sad feeling! A few
blocks from the hotel I saw the family that was going to Canada
across the street – there was someone else still here! I yelled out “Canada”
(since I didn’t know their names.) They were happy to see that they weren’t the only ones still in the area. They
were still waiting for their visas, and it sounded like they had had just as many hassles as we did. At least we had our visas
now – they just had to be picked up in Milan. This family didn’t know
how much longer it would take and how much longer they would be in Washington,
waiting. You wouldn’t think US to Canada would be so
difficult! We exchanged emails then so we could let each other know how things eventually went.
Rick and I then decided to pick up
some Quiznos and bring it back to the hotel. On the way back, we also saw a woman who was going to Finland.
She was also leaving on Saturday since she couldn’t get a flight out on Friday. I asked her if she would like to share
the ride to the airport, and she readily agreed.
Saturday,
August 07, 2004
I slept until 9am
and it felt sooo good! Rick and I had the buffet lunch at the hotel, and then went to the task of getting our luggage all
back in order. We met Kelly (the woman from Vermont going to Finland)
in the lobby and caught out ride to the airport at 2pm. She had arranged the ride,
and had told the man that there were 3 people with 6 LARGE pieces of luggage and also carry-on bags. He came in a regular
car! All 3 of us sat in the back and he managed to put all the bags in the front on the floor and seat – piled to the
ceiling, and then in the trunk. We can’t believe it all fit – barely!!! On the ride out to Dulles we shared stories
of getting our visas for our respective countries.
So I am now on Alitalia flight 623 as I
write this, somewhere over the Atlantic – we are finally, truly on our way, and we are so excited
to see Lugano tomorrow, on our 23rd anniversary.
Fulbright anecdotes –
Here are a few of the interesting stories we heard during our conversations with other Fulbrighters in Washington.
One American woman said that at the end
of her year, she told her partner how she so much enjoyed being able to easily take the bus or train wherever she wanted to
go. It was great convenience not having the hassle of taking the car wherever she went, finding parking, etc. Then, her foreign
partner, who had been living at her US home and driving a car, told about how much she enjoyed having a car and being able
to just hop in and go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted!
Another American alumni couple, who lived
in a decent size home with many things, told about how they exchanged with someone who had a very small apartment and few
belongings. They lived that year using 4 glasses and 4 plates between the 2 of them. At the end of the year, upon going home,
they had learned that their life had so much less stress by not having so much “stuff”, that they cleaned out
their kitchen of unnecessary items, and now use just 6 glasses and 6 plates for the 2 of them!
An alum from Finland
arrived there two years ago. He liked Finland so much, and
he was lucky enough to get an extra leave of absence from his school to work another year (he was offered a different job
for the year)
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