Joseph "Joe" Hirabayashi

2008-09 Outbound to Czech Republic

Hometown: Orange Park, Florida

School: Fleming Island High School, Orange Park, Florida

Sponsor: Orange Park Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida

Host: Pisek Rotary Club, District 2240, Czech Republic

Bio

Joe's Bio

Hello, my name is Joe Hirabayashi. I am a 16-year-old sophomore attending Fleming Island High School. I live with my mom and two younger brothers, Jack and Michael. I was born in Santa Rosa, California and moved to Orange Park, Florida about 12 years ago.

A few of my hobbies are soccer, lacrosse, and cars. I play varsity soccer and lacrosse for my school. I've been playing soccer for 10 years and its my favorite sport. Lacrosse is a fairly new sport to me and my area. Last year my high school became the first in our area to get a team. I have only been playing lacrosse for 3 years.

I am very excited and fortunate to have the opportunity to go overseas. I cannot wait to experience a new culture and way of life. I would like to thank Rotary for making this experience possible.

August 28 Journal

The days leading up to my departure were rather ordinary. I did not feel waves of emotion or fear. I was, for lack of a better term, cocky. I never thought leaving everyone I know and love would be so difficult. It was not until the morning of my departure that the emotions began to hit me. I drove my friend Kristen to school so that I could say goodbye to her and all my friends. As I said goodbye to all my friends I was silently fighting tears. Never in a million years did I think I would cry. As I said my final goodbye to Kristen, that is when it really hit me. The tears poured out of my eyes like an invisible floodgate had opened. Was I really leaving Orange Park? The next thing I know I was rushing to the airport. It was the last time I would be driving for a year so naturally I was driving incredibly fast.

When we finally arrived at the airport it was a sad moment. My parents and I had a final meal together and then it was time for me to board my plane. The goodbye was swift but painful. As painful as it was to say goodbye, I was overwhelmed with joy! Finally the adventure I had prepared for was beginning. The flight to Detroit was quick and easy. Next came the long flight to Amsterdam. Although the flight was long it was rather painless. There were many movies to choose from, so I was occupied. As I arrived in Amsterdam, my first challenge arose. I did not have a ticket for my next flight. As I frantically looked for a place to get my ticket I learned something terrible. The flight I was booked on did not exist. Thus I had to get a new flight and wait six hours in the airport. After six very tedious hours I boarded the plane and flew to Prague. I cannot describe how I felt when I was greeted by my host family. It was a mixture of fear and excitement. As we simultaneously said ahoj it occurred to me that English would not be spoken.

My first night in Písek was rather funny. I went to bed almost immediately and did not wake up until the next day. I think I slept fifteen hours. When I did awaken it was time to go exploring. My host brother Andřej took me around the town of Písek. Písek is so completely different from Orange Park. Everything is within walking distance. The buildings are so old it is hard to imagine the time when they were built. Less than two hundred meters from our flat is a bridge that was constructed in the 13th century. The history of this town is amazing.

I will soon start school and surprisingly I am looking forward to it. I am ready for yet another adventure.

November 27 Journal

Nazdar,

The past few months have been some of my best. After my initial "settling in" period things started to really become good. I spent a few days walking around getting to know my city. I made my first Czech friends on my third day here. They came over and had pizza with my host brother and I. After making friends I felt more comfortable in what was a strange land to me.

My first week of school went by so quickly it amazed me. Everything was so new and different that time seemed to fly. After only going to one week of school I had a week break from school for our language camp. Language camp was the best week I have had in the Czech Republic. All the other exchange students here are really amazing. We all bonded so well in our short week together.

One of the things I wanted to do most when I first got here was to go to Prague. As it turns out I have gone to Prague almost ten times. As a matter of fact tomorrow I will take a bus to Prague for the weekend, we have a Rotary function.

The longer I stay here the more it starts to feel like home. Everything is so normal to me now. It is almost hard for me to think what it will be like when I go back to Orange Park.

Last week I got my first real experience with snow. I had seen snow once on a mountain but I had never lived with it. It was an amazing experience to go to bed with everything normal and to wake up the next day to snow!

As much as I would like to say I am fluent in Czech I can't. Although my Czech has been getting better and better it is still not where I would like it to be. I understand more and more every day, but I still cannot say everything I would like to. The other day in school we were watching a movie in Czech with English subtitles and I actually understood most of the movie without the subtitles! One of the greatest feelings I have had here was when I understood an entire math class. Although math is essentially universal, there is still a lot of speaking involved.

Since coming here I am a lot more open to trying new things. Ever since I was maybe 10 I had wanted to try some type of martial art. It took me coming to the Czech Republic to finally try judo. I now take judo class twice and week and I love it.

I hope to continue my Czech studies and explore more of the Czech Republic in the future.

Čau, Joe

December 27 Journal

Hey everyone, I suppose I want to share a little bit of how my Christmas went.

Although Many people in the Czech Republic don't believe in God, you would be surprised how many people celebrate Christmas. Prague especially is amazing, in the Old Town Square they have a Christmas market set up and a huge Christmas tree! My mom had sent me an email showing Christmas trees around the world and the Prague tree was one of them. It was really neat for me to be able to say I had seen it in real life.

The traditions here aren't that different surprisingly. The day before Christmas Eve my future host father and I did something I will never forget. We traveled to his friends house to kill carp. If you haven't ever seen a carp let me explain it. It's one of the ugliest and largest fish I have ever seen. I had to beat one over the head, cut it open, and then stick my hand into it and rip out its guts. Needless to say I wasn't too thrilled about eating carp the next day.

There isn't really a Christmas Eve here, it is a day like any other. The interesting thing to me was that we celebrated Christmas the 24th instead of the 25th. We had a traditional dinner of fried carp and potato salad. After dinner we all opened our presents. It was nice to experience Christmas in a new atmosphere, but understandably it was a little difficult for me. I ended up calling my family and two of my best friends. Although it was a little hard I am glad I got to experience such a new Christmas.

February 6 Journal

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a while but I have been really busy. Everyone always told me after New Years the exchange year starts to fly; now I believe them.

Since New Years I have been to Germany maybe 6 times to go snowboarding. Snowboarding is really new for me seeing as we don't have snow in Florida... I am absolutely in love! It's an odd sensation to wake up in the morning knowing that in less than 2 hours you will be in a new country trying a new sport. As I write this I am packing for a week in Germany. A week in a different country is amazing, but a week in a different country snowboarding is beyond words.

I was always a little scared to change families. I had this thought that it would be like starting all over. After changing families I have come to realize that it is actually a good experience. I now have the perspective from two completely different Czech families. I couldn't be any more happy with my current host family. Last weekend we went to their friend's weekend house. It was something like a pig roast. Never in my life did I imagine myself eating pig heart, nose, tongue, or liver. Needless to say it was quite the experience.

In going to the weekend house and experiencing the pig roast I realized how similar our cultures are. In Florida I had done a few pig roasts which were quite similar to what we did here. The more I learn about the Czech culture the more similarities I see. That's not to say there aren't huge differences, but there are definite similarities.

Last week I got an email from my mom telling me to book a flight home. It didn't occur to me until that point that I am half way through my exchange. Time here absolutely flies. I look forward to my next five months and hope they bring everything I am wishing for. I guess I will leave with one of my favorite sayings here, "hlast slast".

February 27 Journal

When I first arrived here I was always looking for something to do. To be honest I was really bored. It's amazing how much that has changed now. I actually have to find weekends when I don't have plans.

My family here has been fantastic. They always have something new for me to experience. At first in school people were really shy around me. I wasn't sure if it was because my language skills weren't so good or if they didn't like me. Now I am seeing a completely different side of them. I don't know what caused it, maybe it's the weather changing.

Some days when I am just sitting alone I realize how much I like time to myself. When I was in the US I was always so busy with sports and school that I never took time for myself. I really like just sitting down and thinking for a while.

I'm really happy the weather is finally changing. As much as I enjoyed the snow it's nice to get a little taste of that Florida sunshine. I spent this last week in the mountains with my school. It wasn't my class but I think it was better that way because I met so many new people. Before this trip I had only ever been on a snowboard. Throughout the week I learned how to ski, cross country ski, and ski on blades. It was really fun for me to learn so many new things.

One day after we got back from skiing we went sledding. I never grew up with snow so my friend (he is from Brazil) and I decided we needed to make up on lost childhood dreams. Needless to say everyone got a kick out of seeing us two sledding, making snow angels, and diving into the snow.

As much as I have grown up here I have also realized I am sometimes like a kid once again. There are just so many new things I can't help but try them. I really like how I am not embarrassed anymore. So many awkward and weird things have happened here that I really just don't get embarrassed anymore. There are a lot of Czech words that sound exactly like other words; it makes for some interesting conversations...

I'm really happy with how everything has turned out so far. I cant wait to start traveling. We have a trip to Barcelona! I've always wanted to see Europe and now it's finally happening. I look forward to everything that's coming.

čus

Joe

April 17 Journal

Since the last time I posted a journal a lot has happened. I think the most obvious for me is the fact that my English is quite poor now. I find that occasionally I actually have to ask a Czech person for help with a word. Last week in English class I was asked the past tense of a word and I actually got it wrong. Needless to say it was rather embarrassing that my Czech classmates did better than me in English class. Last month we took a trip to Slovakia with Rotary. We spent one week in the Tatry mountains snowboarding. It was amazing … before going there I had never been snowboarding on a really large mountain. We had 2 instructors who were absolutely amazing. One was 29 and the other maybe 38 but they both understood all of our weird English slang. I guess I should also mention that their native language is Slovak. Since being home from our trip to Slovakia my friend and I have been looking for ways to stay active. We settled on skateboarding. He had skateboarded for 4 years but stopped; he decided to start again and teach me. I must say that when I was living in Florida I never imagined myself skateboarding. I'm really happy how open I have become to new things. It’s almost as if I can approach new situations with a completely different mindset than before.

Another really big thing that has stuck out for me is how much more you can learn from first hand encounters than textbooks. In school we learned about communism and I thought I had a decent understanding of how it was. Since moving in with my second host family I have learned so much more about how life was for them when they were under communism. My host father and I sometimes have really in-depth conversations about life back in that time. I'm really happy we have had the opportunity to discuss such a sensitive topic. I never would have truly understood the effects of communism if I hadn’t talked with someone who lived through it.

I’m really excited for tomorrow because we are leaving for a Rotary trip to Italy. I have never been to Italy and I have always wanted to go. I think it will be amazing because I will get to see such a pretty country and also see some of the exchange students who I haven’t seen for months. One week after we get back from Italy we have a trip to Barcelona. I think it is really great that we can finally see different parts of Europe. I am really grateful we have been given these opportunities.

I guess one last thing I should mention is Easter. Easter in the Czech Republic is quite different than in the US. My family and I went to their weekend house for the entire Easter break. It was really great, their weekend house is over one hundred years old! Part of the Easter tradition here is similar to what we have in the US. The night before Easter we all got together and painted eggs. The part of Czech Easter that isn’t similar to what we have is the pomlázka. I can’t really think of a proper word to translate it to, but it is essentially a woven stick that you hit the women with. My host dad, brother and I went out on our bicycles to cut out good sticks to weave together. When we got home my host dad taught me to weave four sticks together. It was funny to see my host mom and grandmother watching us make the sticks we were going to use against them the next day. When we woke up on Easter morning we snuck up on them and started to whack them in the butt with our sticks. It’s not violent, it’s just for fun. You don’t have to stop whacking them until they give you a painted egg. It was hilarious to see my host grandmother sprinting over to where the eggs were. I am really happy with how our Easter went; I couldn’t have asked for a better Easter away from home.

I look forward to the weeks ahead,

Joe