Monday
0630 Wake up, shower, check out the entire group. Reception confused - I need two receipts, one for the 7 thai visitors and another for us that my job pays for (this has been the case everyday, wether it is meals, hotel or anything else – two groups, two receipts and two credit cards).
0800 Breakfast meeting with contact person from Vara municipality, who would like to be hostcommunity next year.
0930 Reception still not done checking my groups out!
0945 Leave the hotel and drive 10 min to a main road, where i meet up with the rest of the group who have had a meeting with the muncipality of Götene. Some come to my van and we begin our 2 hour journey by car to Munkedal, a small town close to the westcoast of Sweden.
1150 Arrive to Munkedal, welcoming by the municipality, gifts and words are exchanged. Followed by lunch all together, which again turns into a logistic challenge of explaining the menu of a local pizzeria/lunch place to the thai. Too much food is again ordered, they start laughing in surprise when the huge pizza arrives. Discuss the future of the exchange with head of municipality.
1400 Visit a workplacement, Stone mason company with a twist! Run by a creative female entrepreneur. Two of the participants have this as their workplacement and they are there to show us around. Listen and talk to them about their exchange.
1530 Check in at Munkedal Herrgård, a mansion turned into a hotel! Very nice, located on a green slope, butting against the dense oak forest. Carry heavy pieces of luggage as our guests are in need of assistance with this. Make sure everyone has a room, park the minivans and drop my own luggage in my room.
1600 Pick up at the mansion by same group of municipal staff from lunch and a few others, including 2 hostfamilies. A bus takes us all, in total 19 people, far into the forest – where they have arranged an adventure event in the wilderness for us to experience. Divided into teams, mix swedish and thai, we do various tasks – chopping wood, logging machinery, transporting logs from one island to another etc. One of our esteemed guests from Thailands experiences an unvoluntary swim in the swedish lake! Brrrrr!! We enjoy deer meet bbq at the indoor fire lodge by our camp and we love it! We sing thai and swedish traditional songs, tell stories, jokes, laugh and eat together! Give a speach about the greatness of our exchange, with our group as an example of the extended exchange experience, and the importance of developing our young people!
2200 Arrive back to our mansion for the night, do some work on the computer, manage some finance issues.
2345 Lights off!
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