Bonjour from Paris!

Yesterday we arrived in Paris. We got off the chunnel and boarded our coach to get a bus tour of the city of Paris. Things are definitely different in this city. First off, we were all scared that the coach was about to run over a few bikes and small cars and pedestrians. It was a rather scary experience. Our bus tour was interesting. Our driver spoke German, Spanish and French, while our tour guide spoke English, French and Spanish. Bruce, our AgroTours leader, speaks German and English. Needless to say, the conversations were slightly hard to follow. Although, it was slightly ironic how Bruce said the coach driver didn’t speak English. Yet, he told this to Bruce in English. None of us speak German or French, so it could get complicated at times. We stepped off the bus to see Notre Dame, which was incredibly beautiful. The architecture here is breathtaking. We also stopped for exactly five minutes to see the Eiffel Tower.

At the end of the tour, the coach took us back to the hotel, where we also met Jeff’s friends (Dave and Sue) that led us around town yesterday afternoon. It was very helpful to have translators and people that know the city so well. We walked through the city and up to Bascilla of the Sacred Heart. Kaitlyn, Jason, Jeff and Sue braved the hike up the stairs while the rest of us took the easy ride up. The church was absolutely stunning. Set up outside of the church was a skateboard ramp for a possible record-breaking jump on rollerblades; unfortunately we did not get to witness the jump. We did however see various street performers, one of which climbed a light pole with a soccer ball on his head. There were all kinds of little souvenir shops where we could find anything we could possibly think of. We also walked through Montarte, where we saw all kinds of beautiful paintings of the city, people, scenery and many other things. I bought a beautiful painting of ballet shoes painted on a sheet of music. As a dancer, I absolutely loved this painting and the lady we bought it from was incredibly nice as well. Luckily, she spoke English.

We also all braved the metro together. Which is similar to the metro in D.C but the train goes faster and sometimes people are a little pushier. We did manage to stay as a group though. At one point on the metro, we enjoyed some lovely accordion music. Hannah especially enjoyed this, and even started dancing along. Kaitlyn, Hannah and I also had quite a chorus of “Shout” going on as we traveled through the tunnels of the metro. Kiera appreciated this.

At 9:40, we got on a boat on the Seine River to get a good view of the city. We all almost got plowed over by a group of people while getting on the boat. Don’t worry; it wasn’t the French that plowed us down. We were able to see all the major buildings in the town, but the best part was seeing the Eiffel Tower completely lit up. Before going back to the hotel, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a café near our hotel. We all tried crepes, well except for Hannah. She ended up with a bowl of fruit salad. We can’t take her anywhere! J We got back to the hotel late, which is why we are blogging today instead of last night. We were all very tired from our long day. This morning we are braving the bus again. Sitting in the front is slightly more intimidating because it truly feels as if we are about to run over people… Crazy! Anyway, today’s the day we are off to our host families so I’m sure we’ll have plenty of stories when we return! Happy reading!

~Jess

A start on the photos from England

Here are the first bit of our travels in England, including a farm stop and Warwick Castle.  So many more to come.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marylanddairy2008/sets/72157627080174732/

~Kiera

Scotland Photos from Paris

Hi all,

Just a quick note to say that our photos from Scotland have mostly made it online. We are safely in Paris and had an amazing day out. The team will tell you all about it in the morning, but after a very long day preceded by a very short night I thought that sleep seemed the better choice than blogging.

View the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marylanddairy2008/sets/72157626942009907/

~Kiera

Ello Mates

Today we were in the beautiful rustic city of London. We started the day with a continental breakfast in the hotel while Jess and Kaitlyn tried to blow dry their hair. What else is new right? Anyways, after that we got on an open tour bus and got a short tour of London with threatening torrential down pours on their way. We looked quite nifty in our ponchos. We got off the bus at Big Ben and Thames River. We convinced Hannah to go on the London Eye, which is something similar to a Ferris wheel except it's a lot higher and is enclosed by glass windows. Still not convincing enough for Hannah. From the London Eye, we captured great pictures of London, Big Ben, Birmingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey to name a few. By this point we were off the open tour bus and loose in the streets. SCARY. :) Jason was determined to get a picture of every Maserati and Bentley on the road. Then we went on to get a closer view at some of these sites. We saw Westminster Abbey and then went to Birmingham Palace.
On the way to the palace we saw the changing of the horse guards and walked through a gorgeous park. We then went to Trafalgar square and back to the Thames River to sit down for a while. While in the park, Kaitlyn started to feed some pigeons some peanuts and then we soon had a flock. It was kind of like the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds." After the attack birds, we moved onto several different gift shops where we took pictures with the London mascots. Then we went to the Lion King, where Jason was so excited he couldn't stay in his seat....BAHAHAHA....Not really. :P The play was really good! We all were able to get a team souvenir at the theater. We tried to make away with the head dresses that the actors wore....It didn't work. :/ and back on the Tube to the hotel. -Kaitlyn, Jessica, Hannah, and Jason

Wishing for some colder air conditioning…or a breeze.

We left our hotel at 9 a.m. and went to Warwick castle. This castle is known as one of the best castles in England and it held to its reputation. It dated back to as far as 1365 and was still getting it done. We saw the chamber where prisoners were held for many years at a time. It was hard to get down into and Jason knocked his head on the concrete wall of course. He’s fine so no worries there. As we toured through the royal castle the wax figures seemed so real. Hannah couldn’t help herself and she just had to touch one to see if it would move. When we first entered the castle, a drunk woman greeted us at the door, pretending to be like someone from back in that day and age. We climbed to the top of the towers and took gorgeous pictures. One of the kids from another team stood at the top of the castle and screamed “It’s my money and I need it now!”

After that we headed for London and let’s just say it got heated once again. People were fighting to get to the front of the coach where it was cooler because sweat was a rolling. Eventually we ended up getting off the coach and walking along side it because the heat was unbearable. Our entire dairy group had to walk to the Underground stop and buy tickets and get on the tube in order to get to our hotel. The funny thing was that even though we had a delay in the tube to get tickets, we still managed to get to the hotel before either one of the coaches. It was quite the experience!

After unloading our luggage from the coaches, we made our way to our rooms and took a half hour break to regroup and cool down before meeting to decide where we wanted to eat dinner. We decided on a small Italian restaurant called Sopranos. It was AWESOME!!! Everybody liked their meals and enjoyed cooling off after the sweaty bus ride. We managed to grab the attention of every single waiter in the restaurant. First, Hannah attempted to order her meal in an Italian accent…..HA..yeah..not so good. Then, Jess and Hannah couldn’t finish their dinner without getting a box, which we had no way of storing. Then the waiter conned us into getting dessert….they really didn’t have to do much convincing ;) On our way out of the restaurant, all the waiters lined up to shake our hands and try to bribe us to come back tomorrow morning. After our grand dining experience, a long relaxing walk proved to be a lot of fun, filled with great photo opportunities and a good remedy for everyone’s nerves.

Jess, Kaitlyn and I had a few slight problems with our room keys but after 100 trips up and down the steps, we finally got a Very handsome part of the hotel staff to come to the rescue. He is actually standing right in front of us while we are writing this…HA Greatness!! They were all very kind (but hard to understand) and willing to help and we finally fixed the problem and were able to get in to unpack and turn the a/c on. We are all having a great time and we hope everything is going well in the states, since we aren’t there to keep everyone in line. ;) Oh, and Minnesota, I’m expecting to hear great things tomorrow about our amazing blog-tastic post’s. Alright everyone, we will talk to you in the morning.

~Jason, Kaitlyn, and Hannah

Its getting hot in here

We started the day with an English breakfast and then departed from the Ramada Jarvis hotel in Livingston. Our first stop was Moffet where we shopped at the Woolen Mills. Jeff tried on a kilt and we have pictures. While riding on the bus, we took the scenic route through the hills of southern Scotland and saw the Devils Beef tub which was used to store stolen cattle during the Scottish/English wars. The tub dropped off about 500 feet or more so it was very hard for officials and farmers to retrieve their cattle. We then entered into England where we stopped at a dirty Burger King and got lunch. After that the bus got very very hot. The air conditioning quit working and of course today was one of the hottest days so far reaching the 90's. We ended up pulling off the road and then back on with no air conditioning still and decided to sing karaoke on the way to Ricky Jone's dairy farm.
Ricky Jones milks about 125 Holsteins with a herd average of 9,500 litres. His highest producing cow milked over 120 pounds. They used potatoes as a source of energy in their silage because they cannot grow corn due the the wet weather. He farmed about 300 acres consisting of wheat, barley, and potatoes.
We then went to Mr. Leedham's who hosted us for a BBQ. We had pulled pork and strawberries and creme. After that we got back on the bus and sang 80's music on the way back to the Hotel in Coventry.

- Jason

Judging day!!!

Hi everyone. Today we woke up early and headed over to the fairgrounds to participate in the judging contest. We went into a show ring that was not very big at all. The show ring was divided into four sections. We judged two classes of Holsteins, one class of Ayrshires, and one class of Jerseys. We gave reasons on one Holstein class and the Ayrshire class. It was quite hectic but interesting to see the differences between the ways we judge. Instead of circling the cows in the middle of the ring while we judge from the outside, we stand in the middle and try to keep up with the fast pace that leadsmen are going at. Not to mention that we only have 4 minutes in the ring with each class. This time frame is not extended for reasons classes. I (Hannah) thought it was hilarious how the announcer would tell us that we need to turn our placing cards in and at that very same moment the time on the next class would begin before we even turned in our cards. I think it was so ironic that we only had a couple minutes to take notes (which involved writing a few words describing each cow) but they allowed anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to study reasons plus we were allowed to read our notes. It was crazy! We also thought is was funny that the Scottish lads felt the need to pat down the cows as if they were going through airport security.

The weather was fairly nice considering the weatherman predicted a 90% chance of rain. It only rained a little during the contest which was good considering it was a steady rain during breakfast. After the contest we had some free time that allowed us to explore the fairgrounds and watch the parade of champions. We saw the beef and dairy cows parade around the ring and it was a different but wonderful experience. Later in the evening we headed over to the Lowland Building for dinner and the announcement of the winners. Congrats to Jess and Kait for being the second place international high school team. For those of you who don't know, our teas were separated into pairs. Two members from the Minnesota FFA team won the contest.

Day 2 in Scotland

Hey whats going on back in the states ehh? Today was a good day. Jeff slept a lot on the bus while we toured the city of Edinburgh. We got to see the palace where Prince Charles was staying for the weekend. Security was tight but we got pictures of the palace. We also go to see an extinct volcano that oversees the city. We drove up on these mountains and saw a beautiful view of Edinburgh. Then we traveled through more of the city and saw the castle of Edinburgh which has never been taken over by the English since it was built. While riding around the city we were given a tour by Margot who did an excellent job explaining the history of Edinburgh, since it was where she was born and raised. In the city, we passed a circular building that Margot explained was a watch tower to catch body snatchers, or people that dig people out of the graveyard to sell to the medical center to make a few pounds. Margot also explained the new and old parts of Edinburgh. All the buildings are made of sandstone, and some are cleaned while others aren't. Next we went to the Royal Highland Show. We signed in at the International Visitor's Center where we had tea and shortbread. Then we went and got lunch which consisted of Highland cattle beef burgers and chips. The girls were picky and did not enjoy the food. I however did and had curry on my chips(french fries). We got an overview of what the Scottish are looking for in a dairy cow from two talented judges, Anne and Gina. Anne won the judging contest last year was the first woman to do so. Everyone here thinks that American cows are bigger than theirs. This is a problem for cows laying in cubicle sheds (our free stalls). However, while walking through the barns we found that the show cows are just as tall. The sires used here are household names such as Shottle, Mr Sam, Goldwyn, Durham, and Dundee. We also saw a Jersey sired by Resurrection that went back to Veronica and an Iatola. After that we saw a bunch of horses jump around and waste money ;). Finally, we headed back to the hotel and got dinner at the Lime Kiln. Jeff tried Haggis and he is still breathing at the moment. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Scotland Day One

Hello everyone,
This morning once we landed in Scotland, we boarded the coach to head over to the National Museum of Rural Life. In the Museum, we were served a quick lunch and then had the opportunity to explore. After touring the museum, we were allowed to walk to a historical farm where we saw several Ayrshire cows, an 18 year old Clydesdale horse named Maddie, and a 23 year old Scottish Highlander named Laura. Along the way, we took several team and scenic pictures of the land and the farm.
After the museum, we traveled to the Scotland Agricultural College and received a farm tour from a charming and quite hilarious Scottish man. We learned about how dairy farming is important and how it works in Scotland and we also learned John's sentiments about "those damn American cows." This was his favorite phrase throughout our tour; he seemed to fit it in at least once every sentence. The reasoning behind this phrase is that although John appreciates what American cows bring to the herd, he does not appreciate the excessive size of American cattle. The barns and facilities here in Scotland are much smaller and cannot accommodate such large Holstein cows.
After this tour, we drove back through the city of Glasgow and headed to our hotel for the next few days. We were served dinner, and are headed to the Scottish equivalent of WalMart as soon as we hang up the mouse.

Arrival!!!

After two flights, we have made it to Scotland! We are all very excited and quite tired. We flew from Dulles to Philadelphia where we patiently waited to catch our next flight. We all grabbed something quick to eat after roaming the airport for a little while. We then got on a bigger plane than our first to go to Glasgow. We were served a small dinner on the flight and had the chance to watch two movies. The flight was not the most comfortable but we have finally made it and are ready to start our journey in Europe!

Just over a week to go!

We have all had our orientation meeting and have completed our fundraising goals of just over $30,000. First and foremost, a huge thank you to all who have helped us get to this point. I know that the team is extremely honored to have been able to bring ANOTHER National Title back to Maryland and continue an amazing tradition. For those of you who do not know, this year's team members are:

Hannah Hood of Frederick County
Kaitlyn Corbett of Washington County
Jessica Sentelle of Frederick County
Jason Zimmerman of Montgomery County
Jeff Semler of Washington County coached this great group

The travel plans include visiting Scotland, England, France, Luxembourg and Germany. We will have the opportunity to judge cattle at the Royal Highland Show in Scotland and the Luxembourg National Show, see a play in London, take a cruise down the Rhine River and so much more. The tour group has even been invited to lead cattle in an International Sale hosted by the Luxembourg Herd Book Association! So much more to be shared with you in the days and weeks to come. Thank you once again for your support as this trip would not have been possible otherwise.

~Kiera