{"id":12186,"date":"2019-11-02T14:40:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-02T18:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/?p=12186"},"modified":"2019-11-05T15:54:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T20:54:22","slug":"from-austria-with-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/2019\/11\/02\/from-austria-with-love\/","title":{"rendered":"From Austria with Love!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span class=\"xs1\"><span style=\"color: #454545\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12187 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"373\" height=\"313\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina.jpg 883w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina-768x644.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 373px) 100vw, 373px\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000\">Hey there! Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Christina, I&#8217;m 21 years old and I&#8217;m from a country far away called Austria. I came to Annapolis a few months ago to do some volunteer work. I didn&#8217;t know what journey I had ahead of me, I didn&#8217;t have any expectations and I barely had any idea how it was going to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp2\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;min-height: 20.3px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><span class=\"xs1\">But then I spent my first day at GiGi&#8217;s Playhouse. Let me tell you, immediately I felt the JOY in every employee, participant and volunteer I met. <\/span><span class=\"xapple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"xs1\">From day one I felt like being a part of the GiGi&#8217;s family and the opportunities GiGi&#8217;s offers just blew my mind. Cooking, exercise (which is exhausting let me tell you), sign language, dance marathons, learning computer skills and basically everything you can think of in the programs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><span class=\"xs1\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-12209\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina-Judy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina-Judy.jpg 517w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christina-Judy-245x300.jpg 245w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 205px) 100vw, 205px\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp2\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;min-height: 20.3px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span class=\"xs1\" style=\"color: #000000\">Within my few weeks here, I learned to take time and live life by seeing the joy in every moment. Nowadays everything and everyone is in such a hurry, but the people at GiGi&#8217;s Playhouse have taught me to relax and that it doesn&#8217;t matter what you are doing, as long as you are kind with the people around you and experience happy memories together. No matter if young or old, American or European, extra chromosome or not, at the end of the day we are all in the same boat, let&#8217;s make it a journey to remember.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp2\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;min-height: 20.3px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span class=\"xs1\" style=\"color: #000000\">Thank you GiGi&#8217;s for all the experience I was able to gain. I&#8217;m honored to be part of your community. Going back to Austria is bittersweet, but I wanna let you know that you have a special place in my heart from now on and I will always carry that with me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp2\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;min-height: 20.3px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span class=\"xs1\" style=\"color: #000000\">educate. inspire. believe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp2\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;min-height: 20.3px\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"xp1\" style=\"margin: 0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt\"><span class=\"xs1\" style=\"color: #000000\">Yours, Christina<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Editor&#8217;s Note: We are so happy our paths crossed Christina. You are a special young lady and we are so grateful that you came to share your heart, and German skills, at GiGi&#8217;s Playhouse. Come back soon! Auf Wiedersehen!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-12210 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christinas-last-day.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"549\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christinas-last-day.jpg 998w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christinas-last-day-300x219.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/files\/2019\/11\/Christinas-last-day-768x561.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 549px) 100vw, 549px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey there! Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Christina, I&#8217;m 21 years old and I&#8217;m from a country far away called Austria. I came to Annapolis a few months ago to do some volunteer work. I didn&#8217;t know what journey I had ahead of me, I didn&#8217;t have any expectations and I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,232,8,21],"class_list":["post-12186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-down-syndrome","tag-friendship","tag-gigis-playhouse-annapolis","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gigisplayhouse.org\/annapolis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}