AM Rotary's 2024-25 outbound exchange student was the speaker at the February 25 meeting.
Ellie Heier Zoomed in from Savona, Italy to describe her life this last six months in Savona, Italy. By Italian standards Savona is a small city. It lies on the Mediterranean coast on the northwestern edge of the country in the region of Liguria. She enjoys being a 10 minute walk to the beach and a 10 minute walk to the mountains. Typically there is no snow in winter, but temperatures can get down to the 40sF.
Ellie has experienced many of the ups and downs that were described during her training last year. The highs were experienced when she began to feel comfortable in the Italian language around December. Experiencing the holiday traditions and getting to attend professional soccer events with her host dad made her feel extremely grateful to be an exchange student this year in Italy.
Ellie has not only kept busy with her school, which has an emphasis on the language arts, but also spends her outside of school hours teaching English to adults and children, playing volleyball, and hanging out at the beach with friends. There has also been opportunity to travel to Italy-wide youth exchange events, and also has had the opportunity to visit Barcelona. Ellie has been able to overcome the challenges that have come up and has been having a fabulous exchange year. Ellie is grateful to her exchange families, host club, and to Rotary for giving her this opportunity.