Last day in Luxembourg

Moiyan….haha that means hello. So these past few days we have been with our host families. We had an amazing time and we were contemplating whether or not if we would be returning home. Right now I am on the bus, but, I will try to explain what all went on with our host families. My (Hannah’s) host’s name was Natalie Drauden. She was actually the only host that didn’t live in Luxembourg and she was about a half an hour outside of the fairgrounds. She lived on a small beef farm where she raised about 15 Limousin beef cattle, a (Holstein print) cat and a dog . She was quite the live wire! She spoke English very well, although, she was better at listening to us speak and understanding us than she was at forming sentences. My host family room mate was Lauren Bush, or as we like to call her; Bob . She was a lot of fun and we got along great. We are convinced that we were separated from birth, but hey, that’s just us.

The first night with Lauren and Natalie, we went to her house for about a half an hour and she literally said “Ok, we must hurry if we will be attending fun”. She took us to a pub that was a couple minutes away from her house because Germany was playing Nigeria in soccer or football and the pub was broadcasting the game. Before we went, we had to get our faces painted black, yellow and red so we could at least look like we liked the Germany team. Lucky for us, Germany won and everyone was happy. The next day, we toured the countryside where we got the chance to take lots of pictures. Then we headed to the shops to, well, shop  The first day we were at the fairgrounds we started out the day with a one class judging contest, where all we had to do was place the class 1 through 6 and write the number of the cow that had the best udder. Later, we all got matching shirts to wear for the Luxembourg International Holstein Sale. The shirts were interesting because all of the girls shirts were extremely small. Many of the girls on the trip ended up trading shirts with some of the guys. This exchange made for some funny photos :P Our job at the sale was to prep the animals for their parade around the stage. This was the most awesome sale I have ever attended. The auctioneering was done in about three different languages and everything was very up-beat. In between each animal being sold, there was a DJ in the back of the barn that would crank the tunes. Everyone would sing along and sometimes start dancing. We were all exhausted. Some of us didn’t leave the fairgrounds from the sale until 2:30 the next morning. Luckily my host let us sleep in until around 10 am.

Yesterday at 8:00 pm everyone met up at the fairgrounds where we had a barbeque. The fairgrounds food consisted of only several things. There were about three different types of sausages and an interesting sandwich that consisted of a pork chop with the bone still in it and jammed between two pieces of bread. That was really the only source of food, even though there were around 5 different stands. Also, this would have to be the first time that I have ever tried Sheep Ice Cream. It was……different! At the end of the barbeque, everyone stayed and had a good time getting to know people from Germany and Luxembourg. Our last day of host family time was very sad because I had gotten to know everyone and we all became really good friends. We were taken to the fairgrounds by Natalie so we could watch the showmanship contest. One person from each team got the chance to partake in the contest along with people from Luxembourg, Germany and other countries. Our team nominated Jason to partake in the showmanship contest. He did AWESOME! He ended up winning Reserve Champion against a large variety of leadsmen and he won a nifty trophy. After the contest, we said our goodbyes to our host’s and headed out of Luxembourg and into Germany. Soooo, that’s about it. We will see everyone soon. I hope everything is good and well back home. Goodbye.

~Hannah