31^st Caretakers of the Environment Conference

 Oregon, USA

July 1 - July 11, 2017 

 AUSTRIAN CEI DELEGATION 2017

Day 1 and 2 

We started our journey on the 1^st of July in the morning at 3 a.m. With a shuttle bus we went to the airport Vienna-Schwechat and took the plane at 6.55 a.m. to Amsterdam. During this first flight nearly everyone fell asleep and was trying to catch up some missed sleep from the night before. After our arrival in Amsterdam, we spent an hour for the extensive security checks due to the American safety regulations. When we were finally allowed to enter the USA, we were quite late for our flight and so we ran over the airport in order not to miss it.

Fortunately, we left Amsterdam on time with the Delta Airline plane at 9.55 a.m. We passed our time with chatting, listening to music, eating and, of course, sleeping. Time flew away, and after 10 hours of flight, we finally arrived in Portland at 11.30 a.m. After some final security checks, we luckily all had our luggage and stood in front of the airport.

There we already met some other participants from Poland and also from Hong Kong. All of us were really excited and we were looking forward to arriving at the Wester Oregon University. After our busses had arrived, we went to the University with one of these typical orange American school busses. Tired of the long journey, we were happy to move into our nice rooms. After a short settling-in period, we completed the feeling of the university life as we went over to the cafeteria and had one of many following traditional American dinners, including pizza and fries.

Repleted and exhausted we collapsed into bed, looking forward to the next day and to meeting all the nice people from all over the world.

Birgit Gall

Day 3 

After having breakfast in the dining hall, we had a morning assembly. Then the exciting part of the day started – we had our first presentation. Together with groups from Taiwan, Sweden, Hongkong, Poland and Russia we met in a classroom. At first everyone was quite nervous, but after the start of our presentation we felt more and more comfortable with speaking in front of strangers. Our teachers and of course we ourselves were very proud.

From 12.15 pm till 13.30 pm we had some quit delicious American lunch, like French fries, burger and pizza.

After the tasty break, we held our second presentation- but this time we were not even nervous, it just felt a bit like daily business. Again, we earned a lot of applause. Then the workshops started. It lasted until 6 pm and were partly interesting.

Afterwards we went again to the dining hall and got some dinner. Till 8:30 pm we had some free time to meet with friends and talk to other people.

In the evening the best part started the contemporary culture evening. The Austrian team showed a typical traditional song called “Wie a wüds Wossa” and a power point presentation with pictures about your hobbies. All in all, it was a very successful day and a very entertaining evening.

Sarah Seifter

Day 4 

The 4^th July is a very special day to the American citizens. It’s Independence Day! After the breakfast and the morning assembly, our group went to the main street. There was a huge parade, where everyone was happy and celebrated this important day. We got to see a lot of musicians, dancer, decorated cars, disguised people and many other things. This was quite amazing! After this ceremony we had some leisure time. The weather was good. So we went back to the university, sat down in the grass, listened to some music, ate some snacks and just enjoyed our time. In the afternoon we left the campus to watch awesome fireworks. This walk took us about 1 hour and 30 minutes, it was exhausting. But then we arrived at the park and it was like a festival there. The atmosphere was quite good. At 10 pm the big firework started. It lasted for about 20 minutes and it was amazing! Everyone applauded and was super happy. After this show we went back to the university and fell asleep as soon as we arrived. It was a great day!

Melanie Leitold

Day 5

The Wednesday, the 5^th day of the conference, started as always with the breakfast in the dinner hall. After our breakfast we waited in front of the entrance for heading to our 2 tours on the morning. The first destination was the OSU Valley Tour. This was a short introduction in the university life in the US and moreover we got some other information e.g. the price or the high education. The other project was the Central and the South Valley. We did a tour through the city centre.

Afterwards we had a little break and got something to eat. After our short we continued our project tour. Moreover, we started with a short forest tour.  We walked through the forest and an expert explained something about the trees and plants in this forest. Furthermore, we went on to a Tsunami Simulator. Scientists and experts explained reasons and consequences of a Tsunami.

Then we went by the bus to a dry farm. At the farm we tasted fruits and vegetables. These kinds of vegetables are growing up without any water. Our last project for this day was the engineering building. This centre was a sewage plant. The explanations were very complicated to understand because the technical process is very complex. Afterwards we had a 30 minutes break and we came back to the university. At the university, we had the possibility to have a look at the fitness centre. Moreover, this fitness centre was huge with a swimming pool, rock climb or a basketball field. After our sporty afternoon we had dinner and the evening was free so we played cards with other delegates.

Julian Rieger

 

Day 6 

Like every other day, Thursday also started with an extensive breakfast. After eating delicious American food, like bagels or fried potatoes, we went with typical American school busses on our first trip to a water treatment plant.

After we had learned how the water treatment is carried out in America, we had a picnic and ate our lunch. That day it was a sandwich and American crisp.  Subsequently our trip continued. After hours (it seemed like 3 hours) we finally arrived at the highest mountain in Oregon, the famous Mount Hood. Mount Hood is an old volcano and has twelve glacier. Despite the season, there was a lot of snow on it. For some of the delegates it was the first time in their life that they saw snow and they were all highly excited. However, the point was, because of our full schedule, we only had little time to explore the whole mountain.

After the long trip back, we enjoyed our dinner, for me it was one of the best pieces of pizza of the week and then went to bed with the knowledge, that the next day will also be adventurous and sensational.

Jasmin Pichler

Day 7

We started our 7^th day at the conference as usual with the breakfast and the morning assembly. Afterwards we went to the E.Z. Orchards farm market, where natural and organic products grown at the farm were sold. Following we visited a recycling plant  at which we learned how trash can be recycled correctly. For lunch, we got self-harvested beans, salad and bread at the “Youth Farm”, where we helped Mychaela, a girl from Oregon to build a wall of sludge for the insects. In the afternoon, we went to the Woodburn Outlet Mall to do shopping. It was a huge area and it was great fun to spend time there.

After returning to the Western Oregon University we prepared ourselves, got dressed and met well-dressed for dinner at the Pacific Room, accordingly it was very special for everyone. Subsequently the CEI conference finished with the official closing ceremony for which every nation prepared a traditional cultural performance. It was very interesting and of course great fun to watch and join all these different performances. Our group, Austria, presented the “Krebspolka” and “Das knallrote Gummiboot”, at which all our new friends from all over the world joined. At the end of the ceremony we had a disco, before we spent a very nice last night with our friends.

Julia Papst

Day 8 

On Saturday our CEI conference was over and so we left Salem and set off to Portland. After the coach trip to the capital city of Oregon, which took us about two hours, we went for a walk to a flea market. During our leisure time we could do whatever we wanted for example go shopping, go to drink some coffee or just enjoying the beautiful view of the city.

Because all of us were quite hungry we decided to go for a dinner to a Sushi bar. The restaurant, which is known to be one of the best in the city, was recommended by a friend from Salem, who we met at the CEI conference. The food was excellent and we enjoyed our time there.

After that, we took a public bus to our motel out-of-town and then we had to walk about five minutes from the bus station to our rooms. On that day we all went to bed very early because of the exhausting and stressful week and our teachers permitted us to have a good night’s rest.  To sum up, the day was amazing and as gorgeous as the days before and so we were really looking forward to the rest of the time in Portland.

Sandra Stroissnig

Day 9

The 9^th day of our trip started way more relaxed than the others. After we had a lie- in and a lovely breakfast at Starbucks, we went to see the famous Portland Rose Garden and afterwards the Japanese Garden.

In the afternoon we visited a platform on a hill not far away from the city, which included an exhausting trail by foot to get there.  But the climb was worth the effort- the view from the top showed the centre of the town and the “Mount Hood” in the background. In the evening, Jeff, a conference delegate who lives in Portland, took us to an amazing burger restaurant, where we spend the rest of the evening and had a lovely time together.

                                                                                                                                              Clara Sorger

Day 10 

The 10th of July was our last sightseeing day of our trip. We woke up at 8 am and met in front of the Motel 6 at 9 am. Together we went to the next bus stop and took the bus to the city centre of Portland. Arrived there we made up a plan for the day and also decided to have breakfast in separated groups. 35 minutes and our daily coffee later we went back to the meeting point and headed to some waterfalls an hour away from Portland. If it had not been Monday we would have had buses there so we cancelled this idea and went to the ‘Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’ instead.

In the museum, we first watched a 3D movie called ‘Secrets of the Ocean’ though the film was very interesting the teachers and some students fell asleep. Afterwards we went into a submarine from the U.S. Army and got a tour through it. We learned about the life of the crew and we were told a lot of interesting stories. With new impressions, we made the last part of the interactive museum. We went into a Pompeii exhibition where we watched a 4D film about the destruction of Pompeii. We also had the possibility to see some objects of the ancient Rome. Later on we also went into a science playground where we were able to manage the energy resources of the city which was great fun.

Afterwards we went back to the city centre where we had an hour free time for buying the last souvenirs and gifts. We decided to have burgers for dinner and took the bus to a restaurant, which was called ‘Burgerville’ and was located next to our Motel. The day was very exhausting but we had so much fun.

Back in our rooms, we packed our suitcases and then we sat in front of the windows enjoying the last night eating our left free doughnuts and talking about our time we spent there.

Alexandra Papst

Day 11 

Our last day in the United States began very early in the morning. We met our teachers at the parking lot in front of the Motel. We began our long journey home with an ordinary walk to the bus station. After a quick bus ride, we entered the airport train which brought us to the airport.

Our bags checked in and our tickets received we made our way through the security control. Due to our early arrival, we had some time to kill until boarding started. Many of used the time to grab something to eat from one of many restaurants in the gate area. At lunch time, it was time to say good bye to two girls of our group. They boarded a plane heading for New York whilst us, were still waiting for the boarding call for our flight to Amsterdam.

Finally, at 1 pm the airplane was ready to board. After a smooth boarding the doors were closed and our journey back home began. It was a beautiful day and while we were heading northbound the sun slowly started to set. Because we were flying in mid- summer the night was quite short so it was hard to find some sleep. After crossing North America and the Atlantic, Europe greeted us with a beautiful sunrise above Ireland. After landing in rainy Amsterdam at 8 am in the morning we had to wait about two hours until our plane left for Vienna.

Our final flight back home departed on time and landed even ahead of schedule. We disembarked and went straight down to the arrival hall to get our bags. Outside the terminal, our families were waiting to pick us up. Tired but happy we said good-bye to our teachers and made us on our way back home.

Mathias Moitzi