Kids reply to message in bottle
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

European message H.G. Olsen Elementary School teacher Julie Findley holds a message in a bottle found on the beach in Port Aransas in spring. The message was written by children in The Netherlands and launched from a ship in the Caribbean Sea. Findley's fifth-grade students sent a letter responding to the message, and they got a letter back recently from the students in Europe.

The discovery of a message in a bottle on the beach in Port Aransas has sparked an exchange of letters between a local fifth-grade class and an elementary school class in Northern Europe.

The bottle did not float all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, but it may have traveled hundreds of miles through the Gulf of Mexico. The father of an elementary school girl in Holland launched the bottle for the child and her classmates while he was traveling on a ship in the Caribbean Sea.

A tourist couple found the bottle on the beach and brought it to H.G. Olsen Elementary School in spring this year, said Rosalie Johnson, who was the school's campus secretary at the time.

"They knew it came from a fourthgrade class, and they wanted to show it to another (elementary school) class," said Johnson, who now works as an escrow assistant at First American Title. "They wanted us to have it because they thought it would be neat."

The tourists didn't leave their names or other contact information.

The bottle contained two typed notes - one written in English and one in Dutch.

"We are grade 4 in Holland (Netherlands)," the note written in English said, in part. "We had some lessens [sic] about bottled letters and that is why we have thrown this bottle in the sea. We wood [sic] be happy if you write back." The note listed an address in the town of Rockanje, Holland.

The note was dated Jan. 18, 2006, but it did not say whether that was when it was launched or if that was when the students wrote the letter. The note also didn't say where the bottle was launched.

H.G. Olsen Elementary School's fifth-grade class decided to write a letter to the European kids. Teacher Julie Findley penned the letter. In addition to letting the Dutch students know their bottle had been found, Findley also listed some questions the Port Aransas students had about their counterparts' lives on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Port Aransas kids signed the letter, and it was mailed at the end of spring, just before the school year ended.

When Findley got back from summer break a couple weeks ago, she found a letter with foreign writing on it in her mailbox at school. It was a response from the Dutch kids.

"I just couldn't believe it," Findley said. "I was so excited."

The letter was typed in English by an American boy who happened to be attending school part of the year in the Dutch kids' class.

In response to the questions from the Port Aransas kids, the American boy wrote that he and the Dutch kids live in a little village near Rotterdam and that they too have a beach. He wrote that all the kids there wear blue jeans and enjoy video games, just like American children. He said they also eat many of the same foods Americans eat but also local dishes like kaassoufle and patat.

It also was in this letter that the Port Aransas students learned that the bottle was launched in the Caribbean by a Dutch student's father.

Port Aransas student Andrew Hardegree said it was neat to get the letter back from the Dutch students and learn about their culture.

"I think it might be cool to visit there some day," Andrew said.

"It was kind of cool learning about different people's perspectives," said another Port Aransas student, Bakar Sackschewsky.