Carlo Beltramini

2004-05 Inbound from Italy

Date of Birth: September 25, 1987
Hometown: Cagliari, Italy
Sponsor: Cagliari Est Rotary Club, District 2080, Italy

Host: Daytona Beach West Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida USA
School: Spruce Creek High School

Carlo's Bio

Hey I am Carlo, and I come from Italy. I live in Sardinia, an island off the southern coast, but now my new house is here in Florida, in Daytona Beach. My parents and my brother live with me. Let’s start with my parents: they are really affectionate with me, and they can understand when I have a problem. My brother is 27, and now he is working with my father at his new bar. I like playing basketball and somebody said that I am a really good player: maybe I will join the Varsity basketball team at Spruce Creek High School. We want to talk about girls? I had a girlfriend, a beautiful girlfriend: she is a model, just in my city, but she is a fantastic model… Unfortunately, we broke up because of my decision to become an exchange student.

This year I hope to learn the best I can and to have fun: it won’t be easy, but I can do it with the aid of all the people I know and I will know…

August 2-4 Journal

August 2-3
Hey it’s Carlo here. I finally arrived in Florida, after 25 hours between airports and plane. The first thing I did is sleep. I love sleeping so much. At the airport I met two wonderful people, Fred and Claudia, who helped me to go to my host city, Daytona Beach. At their house I met Pierre, a French guy who comes from (try to guess)… France!!

August 3-4
I met Pierre: he is a really nice guy, and in the morning we went to the beach. We had a lot of fun, and we talked about everything (also about some Ponte Vedra’s girls, isn’t it Pierre?). Now I want to say: < Thanks Pierre, you are my first friend here…>.

August 4
Claudia drove me to Daytona, where I met Colleen, my host mama J.
OK Daytona, are you ready? Carlo is here…
FIRST SCHOOL DAY
O-H  M-Y  G-O-S-H!!! Even If I pay the people, they wouldn’t talk to me. I’ve never seen something like that: all the students seem really busy, run there, run here…. Come on man, RELAX!!!

September 14 Journal

Hey guys I am still alive, and I am here to tell you the second part of my wonderful J journal.

The things are starting to get better now: my English is a little improved, I like so much where I am, and in particular I am meeting a lot of new girl friends J… Last Saturday I was in Tampa for the hurricane, and in a few hours I had already met two really nice girls (somebody knows something I can’t tell you… eheheh).

Soon it will be my birthday, and I think I am going to have a great party: of course, everybody can come to my party, but I am sorry Al, you can’t, because there will be a lot of alcohol and you don’t have to know… just kidding  JJJ

December 18 Journal

There we are again, but this time’s longer: let’s start right now.

THANKSGIVING ... Two days before the huge dinner, I and my host mom had been assigned by our Rotary club to deliver baskets with food to the poor people. We got up that morning at 7, and we met with other people in a place (I don’t even remember where it was). There were like 200 baskets, and it was unbelievable. We delivered about 12 of them, but it was hard work; we went everywhere to do it, but I remember that when it was over, I felt like light, happy, because I knew that it was a very good thing. But the best thing happened when we delivered the 6th basket: there was an old lady sitting on her yard, I put the basket in front of her, saying happy thanksgiving of course, and she asked me: “Where is this from?”. I said: “Some friends”. We both smiled. Anyway, I’ve been with family in a house in Flagler Palm Coast, and we ate so much stuff that of course I’ve been sick two days. But it was all right, because I had to try to eat that much. We didn’t have a typical Thanksgiving dinner, like with all the family around a table, and I’m glad to have been tried this alternative one.

SPORT, SPORT, SPORT ... And now we are going to talk about my favorite sport, basketball. Last November we had at school the tryout for the teams. There were a lot of people, and it wasn’t easy at all. I tried for the Varsity team, and for three long days we had practices to find out what was going to be the new one. Fortunately J I played really good and I made it! I was so happy you know, jumping around, pushing with friends for all the day. Now we have practice every day; it’s pretty hard but you know, that’s all right, I like to work hard and it’s better than chilling at home watching TV and eating chips. We’ve already started the season and so far we are doing pretty well, but I think we are going to do better.

DISNEY ... Well, what else can I say? It was awesome, we all had great time, and I’ll never forget this great weekend. I want to thank everybody, because it was one of the best weekends here, even if after that I felt kind of sad, really sad. This happened when I came back at home; it wasn’t the same thing without those friends, and I knew that, but now I got used to it again, and the only thing I can say is that I’m glad because I have so many friends.

Now it’s cool man! Since about two months I found my place here, and I can tell you that it is great. To make a friend isn’t a problem anymore, I mean it was only for the first two weeks, but now it is too easy to do it. Ah, I just changed family, and even if I’m going to miss Colleen (my ex-mom J), it’s going to be great, because they are wonderful people, and especially because they have the Jacuzzi… (Just kidding; but I mean, that’s not bad). Anyway, at school I’m finding out that because of the basketball team and my Italian accent of course, I’m actually very popular, especially for the girls, and now I can finally say: “That’s what I’m talking about”. I love American girls, I can’t live without them. They are so nice, and they know how to make a guy happy. No for real, everything is so good that I’m loving this place, this people and I know that I’m going to miss them so bad. But I didn’t want to think at that, I don’t have enough time to waste thinking about missing or other stupid things like that.

Well, now it’s Christmas time, and what’s the best way to end this part of journal? Ah ah, you know it guys: “MERRY CHRISTMAS YA’LL”………..

May 5 Journal

With a little tone of sadness, I gotta give you my final journal.

It’s been a long year, a lot of experiences, and a lot of cool stuff. I can spend days to tell you only a small part of all the things I did in the last months, but I’m not here for this. I’m here to tell you that I achieved everything I could, and I couldn’t ask anything more from this year, unless we talk about a beautiful girlfriend… that’d be totally different. No for real, I never wanted a girlfriend this year: I mean, I could have a few but, you know, I just wanted to be “free”… ;-)

I think last time I wrote was right before Christmas, and I wanna tell you a few things about what I did. Christmas day was a really quite one, morning spent opening gifts and stuff, and night having a few parties. It was pretty fun. New Year’s Eve: that was cool, and I’ll tell you why:

(Me, Luca and Gok, with some “friends” found in Jacksonville)

Oh yeah, there they are, the Jaguars Cheerleaders. Anyway, that day was funny, and so was the party that we had at a couple of Rotarians’ house: thank you guys.

Then there was the Seacamp: a lot of you already know what I think about that. The place’d be great, the people’d be awesome, the experience would be so cool, but everything was ruined by the hundred of rules that we had over our heads. Too many, or at least that’s what I think. But I still wanna thank you Rotary, because it was great to see all the friends again.

Then we met the outbounds, nice guys that next year will be in our same situations. But they are cool, and they are gonna have so much fun out there… you’ll see it.

Ah, and we went to the District Conference last weekend. It was great, we had a lot of fun, especially with the outbounds: they are cool, bro. And I wanna congratulate Luca: he did a wonderful job this year, and he really deserved those awards. Congratulations, my friend.

In the meanwhile, my basketball season ended. It was all right, and at the banquet we had, I got a lot of awards, posters, T-shirts, the letters of the school and a basketball with all our signs. And there was good food too though.

At school it’s just going great: I talk to friends all the time, and it’s cool to know that everywhere you’re going, there’s someone to hang out and have fun with. I like my classes, but I kinda miss cooking, that I had to change after I almost burned the kitchen out. At least I got to learn how to cook some eggs… better than nothing, ain’t it? I like my family, even if we all know than now is time for me to go, because it was a really long year. This Saturday there’s the prom, but I won’t go because I decided that I’m going my senior year (I’m a junior right now). What? Did you read something weird? Eheheh, you can ask me some questions about it, when you see me…. I just decided that I’m gonna save money for this time, and I’m going to a party after; I heard about one party, where pretty much all the people that I know are going to, and I definitely can’t miss that.

Me? Well, I changed a lot. Physically and mentally. I am definitely bigger than 9 months ago: I worked out a lot, and I gained 19 lbs of muscles, which I’m very proud of. And I started to think not like a kid any more; I mean, I am still a kid, but sometimes I make some decisions like a man, and I know that. I am very proud of this too. My aspect changed a little from the picture in the website, as you can see:

Now I have just a month before to leave, which means that everything I got used to is gonna change again. But I don’t complain, because for me it’s not over yet. Now you may think: “There we go, now he’s gonna talk about how much he’s gonna miss everything, how sad he is” and stuff like that, but I won’t. I’m not sad, I won’t miss anything. Don’t misunderstand me, it all meant a lot to me, but I’ll never be sad because I finally found out that I’m free: free to do whatever I want, free to go wherever I want, free to have all the friends I want, from wherever I want. THE WORLD. That’s what I have been learning this year. I am not alone; there will be people from all over the world that know me, that like me, and that I will always remember.

Thank you to my families. Thank you Rotary. Thank you, my friends.

I will always remember you. All of you.

With love,

Carlo