Tristan's German Adventure!
My name is Tristan, I am sixteen years old and I live in Oregon. I have an older sister, a younger sister and two younger brothers and live with my mom and dad. I am currently a sophomore in High School and am part of a Search and Rescue explorer program that is partnered up with my local sheriff's office. I am a very athletic and outgoing person. I played soccer for about six years, I like to go camping, go on backpacking trips, hiking, wakeboarding, swimming, bowling, card games, shooting, hunting and I love to play video games and watch movies.
I am also strongly involved in a volunteer program called search and rescue. I, along with about sixty other members and friends, are called out into the woods, rain or shine, cold or hot, to look for individuals who have been deemed endangered, have a serious medical condition, bad weather or are missing and are out in the wilderness that need to be found with extreme speed and efficiency. We are also tasked with the occasional body recovery of any individual that has been found dead for some time and is not easily accessible to medical personnel. It is hard work, but it gives me the chance to go out into the woods and explore places I've never been before and be outside away from the cities and I love doing this.
Apart from my activities I enjoy and my family, I am very much looking forward to meeting and living with a host family in the near future. I have wanted to do something like this for a very long time. When I was about six, my family hosted an exchange student from Germany for a year and since then I thought it would be interesting to travel to another country to study and go to school there for a year. I am also looking forward to staying with a host family to have the great experience to know what it's like to live in their country and also be able to visit all of the great places in the country.
Some of my motivations for doing a study abroad program and being able to live with another family are all the experiences it brings. I would get the chance to learn about that country's history, its language, taste its wonderful foods and visit its wonderful places and meet all the interesting people. While also exploring the country, I would also have the great pleasure to meet the great and wonderful family who would be giving me a place to stay and also showing me their unimaginable amount of kindness and hospitality and also give me the chance to go out and explore the wonderful country with them.
I would like to say I would have an indescribable amount of thanks to all that donate to help me go on this one in a lifetime journey. I will be departing towards the end of July of 2012. I cannot wait to study abroad!
All money donated will be used towards my adventure in Germany. This includes tuition, airfare, spending money, passport/visa fees, and other miscellaneous expenses.
