　　Hello to everyone at Machida 2 Junior High school.
I'm Mr Rohan Donald your new Assistant Language Teacher (ALT).
Please call me Rohan. Melbourne, Australia is my home town,
but I've been living and teaching in Machida for two years.

　　Machida is a great place to live, it is half way between the city, Tokyo, and the sea, Enoshima. Tokyo is a great city, its nightlife and culture are a lot of fun. The outdoors are also fun, for example the surf at Enoshima.

　　　I'm here to help you all learn English, it is true learning another language is difficult. For me Japanese is a challenge, reading Japanese is especially difficult. Maybe you find that English is difficult, especially speaking English.

I look forward to working with you to help make studying English as fun and effective as I can. 　　　
　　　Please don't be shy please say hello, I don't expect your English to be perfect, just try your best to communicate. Communication is what it is all about.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Rohan Donald

Rohan's Summer Holiday Adventure

　　On the summer holidays I went to northern Europe. Europe has many countries in it, I visited seven European countries, I went to Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and these countries are the Nordic countries. Denmark is the gateway to the Baltic Sea, the east of Sweden is on the Baltic Sea, across the sea are the Baltic Nations Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, I visited the three Baltic nations. I also went to Germany, it is in central Europe. Northern Europe has a long cold winter, the days are short and it snows a lot. Northern Europe has a lovely summer. The days are long. It is warm, but not hot. All the plants and animals enjoy summer and people are just the same. Many northern European people take their holidays in August, camping is very popular.

　　I left Japan on July the 28th and returned on September 3rd, I enjoyed a month in Europe. My flight went from Narita to Beijing, Beijing to Arlanda airport outside Stockholm the capital of Sweden. My good friends Richard and Ruby live in Sweden, I stayed with them in the center of Stockholm. Sweden is very clean and organized. I think Japanese people would like Sweden. We went to the park and enjoyed a BBQ, and I went to the Stockholm Open Air Museum, where I saw traditional Swedish life. The Stockholm Open Air Museum has many native animals; there are bears, moose, rein deer, and red squirrels. Red squirrels are very cute, they never stop.

　　On the weekend my friend Richard wanted to get out of town, so we hired a car. In Japan and Australia we drive on the left side of the road, in Europe it's the opposite, they drive on the right hand, I had to concentrate a lot driving, left hand turns were scary.
　　Next stop was Dusseldorf Germany, to get to Dusseldorf I caught a train from Stockholm, through Denmark then into Germany. The train goes onto a boat in Denmark that goes over the sea to Germany the crossing is called the Fehmarnbelt. It was the first time I had been on a train in a boat.

　　In Dusseldorf I met my friend Ben. My friend Ben taught English in Tokyo. Dusseldorf is on the river Rhine it is a city that loves beer and pork, the picture shows a dish called "swine hakser," I could not finish it all.

　　After Dusseldorf it was time to go to Berlin. Berlin has so much history, it is written on the walls. The first wall is the Reichstag, the German parliament, you can see thousands of repaired bullet holes peppering the walls. After world war two The Berlin Wall that cut Berlin in two, East Berlin was communist West Berlin a democracy. Many people were killed trying to cross from east to west. Nowadays Berlin is an artist paradise there is art of some kind on just about every wall, thousands of young people go to Berlin in summer to party!

　　Returning to Stockholm I met my friends Richard and Ruby, together we caught an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn the capital of Estonia. I enjoyed the boat trip, my friend Ruby did not. Ruby felt very claustrophobic in our small room in the middle of the ship rolling gently on the sea. Tallinn is an old city; in the middle of the city you can see the old castle wall from the 13th century.
　　We moved on to Latvia, the capital city is Riga, we all loved Riga. We had so much fun we went to a dance party on a boat that went cruising along a river Daugava.
　　The last Baltic country was Lithuania we stayed in the capital Vilna. We had a friendly local host named Dimitry. Dimitry took us all on a drive into the Lithuanian countryside. We went fishing at a trout fish farm, it was very easy to catch a fish, they were jumping onto the fishing hooks. The fish farm cooked our trouts by smoking them in a traditional local style, with the herb dill, lemon and spices, the fish was delicious.

　　After returning to Stockholm I gave my hosts Richard and Ruby some space. There is a train that goes from Stockholm all the way up into the Arctic Circle and then across to Norway to a city called Narvik. If you like trains this trip is a classic, so I took the trip. The journey over the mountains that run along Norway is beautiful, I would like to see it in winter, there would be no daylight but you can see the aurora.
　　Where the mountains meet the sea is called a “fjord” in Norway, Narvik is a fjord town. The water in Narvik is cold but arctic clean. I climbed up a mountain to enjoy the view. On top of the mountains are old stone structures made for the mountain gods.

To finish my trip I went back to Stockholm, my friends Richard and Ruby had organized a party, a great way to finish a great trip.