Olivia "Livi" Zimmermann

2004-05 Inbound from Switzerland

Date of Birth: September 7, 1987
Hometown: Stans, Switzerland
Sponsor: Stans Rotary Club, District 1980, Switzerland

Host: Bartram Trail Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida USA
School: Bartram Trail High School

Livi's Bio

At home my hobbies were snowboarding, tennis, volleyball, music (guitar, piano and singing) and hanging out with my friends. Now I'm here in Florida (Jacksonville) since about two weeks ago and it seems like two months. I didn't realize yet that I'm here for one year.

I am a junior at Bartram high school. My subjects are: English, Spanish, world history, guitar, musical theater, chorus and sport. The people here are all very nice and funny and my host family is great. I'm living here with my host parents, my two younger host sisters, a dog, three cats and a bunny, about twenty minutes from the beach. So I think that my hobby snowboarding will change to surfing. I decided to do this year because I love to travel and to make new experiences. Now I'm here and it's awesome!!!

October 15 Journal

I'm already here since about two and a half month. I got to know so much awesome people and I'm really glad to be here! I experienced already a lot! Universal studios, Rotary weekend, homecoming dance, cake fight, football games, hurricanes... one of my experiences was my time in the hospital and I will tell you about that...

...It was Friday night and I went to the movie with friends. Afterwards I slept over with them. Then in the middle of the night I was warm and cold at the same time. In the morning as I wanted to go and drink some water, I started to throw up all the time and it was always getting worse. Then they drove me to the emergency room. After about half an hour sitting there, I got a bed in the hallway. We thought that I have food poisoning so the first doctor gave me some fluids because my blood pressure was so low. But it was always getting worse. So my host mom called another doctor who recognized that it was serious and who brought me to the ICU. In there I stayed for the next three or four days. I got an IV in each arm and on my neck. My tonsils were swollen so I couldn't swallow and then I got problems to breathe and they gave a mask. I was lying there and couldn't move myself because I had all these cables and it used too much power and when I wanted to turn around I couldn't breathe anymore. So I was lying there on my back and tried to sleep, but every half an hour was somebody was coming in to take blood or something else. On Sunday it wasn't sure if I would survive it or not! So they called my parents. They took the next airplane and flew over. I had luck and was getting better. I went to a normal room and could start to sit and to do my first steps. I felt like a baby who has to learn walking.

It was such a good feeling to come out of the hospital after about a week. I want to thank Kim and David who slept over in the hospital and all the people who came to visit me, wrote letters or phoned me! I was so happy to see or hear from you guys! I want to thank my parents that they flew over! I want to thank Ken Weiss, Al Kalter, the Kenningtons, and all the persons who helped me and my parents. And I want to thank all the people who prayed for me!!! I'm so happy to get to know so many awesome people! Thanks guys for all!!!

January 15 Journal

At first I want to apologize that I almost never write! The only thing I wrote about was the trip to the hospital! You have to think that my year kind of sucks! But it does not at all! I just love it here! It is always something going on!

There was the trip to Disney world which was just amazing! It was just so much fun with all the other exchange students! And there was Christmas ( I didn't really feel the Christmas spirit so without snow by this warm weather, but it was still fun). Nick, Taylor and me went the 24th of December to Daytona Beach and met with Ruth. We all celebrate Christmas at home at the 24th so we wanted to be able to say that we were swimming in the ocean at Christmas. It was really cold but we did it. It was fun. then the day after Christmas I went to Atlanta for two days and got to see the CNN studio. That was cool.

On the 31st all the exchange students walked in the parade and we got on TV!:-) Afterwards we celebrate the new year together. The cool thing is, it doesn't matter where we go or what we're doing, it is just always fun with those people!

Two days afterwards I had to pack my stuff together and I moved to my second host family! I really like it here! It is so much fun to have a host sister who is the same age! Right now everything is just so perfect!

May 27 Journal

Hellooooo!

It is already a long time ago since I wrote my last journal and a lot of things happened in this time. It is almost time for me to go back home but I don't really wanna go home yet. I'm living right now with my third host family and I love it. The life I'm living here is totally different than the life I had at home. That's why I'm kinda scared of going back because I have no Idea what to expect. But on the other side I'm totally excited to see all my friends and family again and to see what changed at home.

I experienced a lot in this year. I went for example to Panama City Beach with my host family and we did karaoke and stuff like that. The day before we were supposed to go back, our car broke down and we were sitting in the middle of nowhere at night and had to wait three hours for the taxi. But it was fun. My host mom also took me to the play Chicago and I loved it. Another thing I did was visiting a mental hospital on a school trip. It was... interesting. Then I went to ride in a police car for five hours. Not because I did something wrong but because it was one thing I wanted to do before I leave. It was so cool. We even brought one guy to jail. Then we had the Rotary weekend and went on a boat in Steinhatchee. It was lots of fun but really sad at the end to say goodbye to everybody and not know if you ever gonna see them again.

It feels weird that already about half of the exchange students are back home. I still have about seven weeks left where I can go surfing and go to California but it just makes me sad to know that when I leave this place it's never gonna be the same again. But I'm so happy that I did this year. It was probably the best decision I made in my life. And I wanted to say thanks to everybody that helped to make it possible!