Miscellaneous

1. Special English Improvement

     -Medallion of English Mastery

     -Spy guy

2. Nametags

3. The Hiking
 
   - Saturday Hike
   - Morning Hike

4. Others

  - Fire alarm

  - Special Thanks

1. Special English improvement

  Medallions of English Mastery
 

The goal of Hometown is for the villagers to learn or improve their English!
Often there are many children from the same nationality, so for most of them it’s easier to communicate in their mother tongue, rather than in English.
Every morning after breakfast the Medallions of English Mastery are handed out by JP to everybody who wants to "be amongst the few, the proud, the ENGLISH MASTERS!!". With the medallion you aren’t allowed to speak any other language other than English.

If a counselor hears you speaking another language he or she takes the medallion away.

But if you keep your medallion until dinner you get ten Homies, which you can use during Simtown.

 Spy Guy

The Spy Guy is an award given to a lucky villager who has succeeded at speaking English for that given day.
This person is chosen by a certain counselor, who is looking a whole day for somebody who seems to be the right person for this award. The level of English doesn't matter, only how hard you try. So everybody has the same chances.

When the time comes, the counselors and villagers sing,

"It's the Spy Guy, someone you all know,

it's the Spy Guy, when you're above the status quo,

it's the Spy Guy, someone you'd like to meet,

it's the Spy Guy, could be living on your street,

it's the... SPYYYYY GUYYYYYY!"

2. Nametags

The name Björn might be difficult to prounounce for Italian people and the name Francesco difficult to say for French children.

To avoid this sort of problem, you choose a "new name", your Hometown name when you arrive at Hometown.

After having chosen this name, an authentic American or English name, like Jack, Taylor, Alicia, Meg or Kate, you get a so-called nametag, a round piece of wood with a string to put it around your neck.
You can paint your nametag as you like. On its back is attached a piece of paper where the schedule is printed.
You always have to wear your nametag. It`s very handy because you have the schedule always with you, you can remember your new English name and everybody, who doesn’t know your name, can read it on your nametag. Especially in the first days it`s important.

3.The Hiking

The Saturday Hike

Once upon a time a few people were hiking through "hell". This means: Muddy paths, slippery grass and snow.

We started up at Alp Laret and walked back to the next fork in the road, searching for a way to go higher. Then, a couple of steps later, we saw that the path we were on was going to break up. We decided to climb up the hill beside us. We had to climb up the first hill. At this moment we were very motivated and nothing could make us turn back.

After a few more meters going up the hill we had to survive steep, slippery and muddy paths made by cows. We nearly were at the abyss of death. Nevertheless we survived all the dangerous conditions, as we were very motivated.

Now we could take a deep breath. In front of us there was just grass. We were able to make stops at each well and take a lot of pictures although we didn’t see anything. (We were in the clouds).

A short while later we decided to go back to Alp Laret.

On the way back down we had to use the same muddy, slippery and dangerous paths, and we often heard MJ saying, and sometimes singing, "It’s muddy".

When we arrived once again at Alp Laret we decided to drink another hot chocolate, and then made our way back home after a short while.

This could look as if we didn’t have fun. But this is wrong. We HAD a load of fun. We had great times as we were hiking and climbing up the highest hills and afterwards as we were walking back home.

Protection against the rain - we were creative	The hike
It was cloudy	Digging for gold: the 49ers
A Break at the lodge	Time for lunch!

The Morning Hike

In order to make every alarm clock or wake-up call have no bad effect, I woke up before Scarlett came in to wake me up. Firstly I didn’t understand what she wanted to tell me. I went to the bathroom and saw Bo and Tyler almost ready for the hike. I woke up Napoleon and hurried to get ready.

I was ready to go and a few minutes later we, Napoleon and I left "our" room and a few seconds later we were down the stairs.

We left Hometown…

We took the same path as last time up to the first fork in the road, then took the path to the right. After a short while we were out of the forest and ate our 1^st breakfast. It was pretty warm because we had such a blue sky. We hiked and hiked…

After a long while we reached a VERY steep part of a hill. We had the following options: 1) climb up that hill or 2) go around. I wanted to climb up it and did so. It was really fun! =)

On the top of that hill we had our 2^nd breakfast. We rested a few minutes and went headed back to Hometown.

Following our "shortcut", we wanted to have a look at the beautiful countryside of Ftan and took another way. That’s it! ;-)

Our last breakfast this day…

We were up before the sun!	Getting up early was worth it.

4. Others

Fire What?: a fortunate mishap

by Hannah

Last night they promised "tomorrow you can wake up 15 minutes late, enjoy". This morning they woke me up at 7:00 am. , is it some kind of joke? Only then I heard some real annoying "neee-noooo-neeee-noooo’s"… It seemed like the ambulance, but you know, ambulance comes and goes, this sound insisted! Well, people were fussing around and all looked mad and somebody screamed "get your shoes and coat and follow me" or something like that (I’m kinda slow in the morning)… I figured out what was going on something like 15 seconds later and fussed around like all the others (looking as much or a big deal more dumb)! We all ran out, and only when I was out I understood that people would have fussed lots more if it was real fire…

Now we know that the alarm was an accident, caused by a cigarette of a worker in the building.

Special Thanks:

Hometown would like to thank Alicia for her hard work on the website!  Also, thanks to everyone who submitted their pictures.  Great work guys!