Zane Furis

2010-11 Outbound to Germany

Hometown: St. Augustine, Florida

School: St. Augustine High School

Sponsor: St. Augustine Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida

Host: Berleburg-Laasphe Rotary Club, District 1810, Germany

Bio

Zane's Bio

Guten tag everyone! My name is Zane Furis, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but I’ve lived in St. Augustine, Florida for four years. I live with my parents, as an only child now that my brother went to college. I go to St. Augustine High School. I’m in 11th grade, and will be graduating early hopefully before I go to Germany. I love soccer which I think I’ll have I common with the German people. If I’m not playing soccer I’m probably at the beach, or hanging out somewhere with my friends.

My mom Annese Furis is a stay-at-home mom who I love. My dad owns his own business in sales, and also works out of the house. My brother goes to Florida State University; I go stay with him for a bit over the summer usually. My brother lived in Panama for a while, and my parents have been to Europe many times. So we are a well traveled family.

My school is not too hard, I’m pretty good at history, and I take French, so maybe I'll run into some French people while I’m there, and get to use it. I take honors classes and usually get an A or B in my studies.

I would like to thank Rotary in giving me this opportunity to go live abroad, I appreciate this very much. So you’ll be hearing from me in Germany later this year.

August 29

November 19

It’s almost been three months since I’ve been in Germany, and I’m having a great time. The language for me is still slow, but I’m getting a little better every day.

 My first Rotex weekend was pretty sweet. It was so cool hanging out with kids from all over the world. The coolest part about it was despite where you were from, we were all instantly friends. The first day we broke up into groups and stayed in different host families over night. I stayed with two kids, one from Mexico and the other from Argentina. The next day we visited a castle in Sollingen. First time being in a castle, so obviously I enjoyed it. Then later that night it was basically just a big multicultural dance party, in which the South Americans showed up everyone with their wicked dancing skills. I hated to say goodbye all my new friends, but I got to see them all again soon after.

A few weeks later I went to the infamous Oktoberfest in Munich with my host family and my host mom’s sister. It was packed with people and I was surprised by all the carnival rides there, seems like a bad idea to have so many puke inducing mechanisms around so many drunken people. I didn’t really have a chance to explore around the city, but from the few areas I saw, I can make a hypothesis and say Munich is a beautiful city.

Then soon after my trip to Oktoberfest, I went to Rome. My god, Rome is a wonderful place, and I am for sure going there again after my exchange. I have video footage of the ultimate gangster himself….The Pope. I will try and upload the photos of the Pope and Rome sometime soon. Actually seeing the buildings and history I have read and studied about was really satisfying, I really had a feeling of finally I’m here.

Then about two weeks ago I got to see all my exchange friends again at an interact weekend in Troisdorf, which was really cool, since I don’t get to see them that often because I live kind of far away. And naturally this time was even more fun than the last weekend because now we all knew each other. Playing pickup soccer games with cool Brazilians, Mexicans, Canadians, Ecuadorians, Venezuelans, and every other nationality on the planet is always a sure way to have a good time.

I do feel like I have changed a lot since being here, no longer I’m I worried about the future state of just the U.S. and instead I am worried about the state of the world and how every countries decisions effect us all. I think that if more people would go on an exchange year, or at least travel whenever they get the chance, more people would realize that we really are all in it together. It’s not the language I am learning that is most important, it’s just a since of waking up to the truth, and taking the blindfold off my eyes. I repeat again that when more people feel this way, we will realize we’re all in it together.

January 18

Life here is really just normal now. I have a good group of friends. I go to school, play soccer, and sometimes I even do nothing, which really makes me feel at home. Even having friends from every country is completely ordinary.

The last time I saw all my exchange friends was on December 3rd which was our second Rotex weekend, which was pretty sweet, because we were in Aachen which is one of the coolest cities in Germany. The next Rotex weekend is Köln which should be even better.

Christmas here was almost identical to my house except with less lights and of course not with my real family. However, Christmas here was still pretty cool, because I got to meet everyone in my host's family which was neat to see that they were a lot like my family back home, except they spoke German.

I'm very ebullient about my trip next week to Paris with my Rotary counselor and my good friend from Brazil. Then sometime in April we do the same thing but in Amsterdam.

Moving to a somewhat philosophical point of view, I feel like people all over the world are nice, and easily befriended. So for all kids who may be reading this, have no fear and walk right up to people and introduce yourself, it's not very difficult trust me. I've also used my time here to form my own opinions about the world and how it really works. There's one thing I can tell you that I can easily express through a computer, and that is don't firmly believe anything someone tells you. Now of course you have to ask for advice about things and ask questions about the things you don't understand yet, but make sure you go out and experience whatever it is yourself before making a clear and strong viewpoint. For people are obviously not always right. Don't even completely trust what I'm telling you now for I am not all seeing or all knowing, so make sure you learn this yourself, and you will learn this yourself.

One more point, you're going to have a great time, but prepare yourself as well. Just learn the language the best you can, get the paperwork done and have a blast with all the awesome new friends you have in Rotary. Peace.