Ways to Connect...

Alumni Contact Network
Chorale Alumni Site (leave our site)
Alumni Activities
Contact Volunteers and Staff
Volunteer Interest Form
Be an Alumni Coordinator
Alumni Referral
Join a YFU Email Group

General Info | Contacts | Role

Hi, my name is Julie Rollins, from Indiana (until this past spring). I volunteered to become our class contact, and hopefully can get us all back in touch with each other! You can contact me by email at rollins_julie@hotmail.com. I will be putting pictures on this page when my photo album is found (probably Thanksgiving time); it’s packed up somewhere in a thousand boxes in my parent’s house! If you have pictures or stories you would like on this page, please send them to me. I can’t wait to hear back from you all!

I still laugh about how the group of 10 of us left for a month exchange to Italy, and none of us really even knew Italian! But, they do say you learn better when immersed in a language. How true. I got off the plane when we were back home in the U.S., and started telling my sister how excited I was to see her, how much fun I’d had, and other stories all in fluent Italian! While we were in Italy, I remember times when we didn't understand what was being said to us in Italian. Like the night Michelle’s and my host mom came in while she was fixing dinner and said “Ropa sporca”. Michelle and I thought she was asking us if we liked roast pork, figuring that’s what we were having for dinner. We said yes, and our host mom stood there, like she was waiting for something, repeating, “Ropa sporca” We kept saying yes, and finally we got out the English-Italian dictionary, only to find out she was asking us if we had dirty laundry!

I also remember the Italians we swam with wanting to learn more English. Especially swear words! Remember walking through Milan, and hearing them yell out every English swear word! We were so embarrassed, but hey, we were in another country and no one knew what they were yelling! Even after 8 years, I still remember the time we spent in Italy like it was just last summer. After moving from Indiana to California this spring, I started thinking about the people I spent my first big trip away from home with--the other 9 of you from our trip. Many of you lived in California at the time of our trip, hopefully you are still here, and we can get together sometime!