Victoria Peuker

2006-07 Inbound from Germany

Hometown: Melle, Lower Saxony, Germany

Sponsor: Melle-Wittlage Rotary Club, District 1850, Germany

Host: Jacksonville Rotary Club, District 6970, USA

School: Bartram Trail High School

Bio

Victoria's Bio

Here in Florida, I am living in Jacksonville which is a wonderful town. My host family is very lovely. I have 2 host brothers, Bryan 16 and Conner 18, and a dog, Jake :) and they are like my own family. My school is great, too! But very big and the school system in the USA is a big difference to the school system in Germany. Everything here is big but I love it. I am more than happy that I am doing this exchange although I am only here 3 weeks!

To all the new exchange students I hope that you will decide for this exchange, Rotary is a amazing organization and Florida is so wonderful!

At the end I want to thank my sponsoring Rotary clubs in Germany (Rotary Club Melle Wittlage) and my Club in Jacksonville (Rotary Club Jacksonville) for all the efforts and for giving me this wonderful opportunity to spend a year in the sunshine state Florida. Hey to my family and friends in Germany, I love you and miss you all:)

Now I will enjoy the rest of my year :)

Liebe Gruesse,

Victoria

September 23 Journal

It has now been 2 months since I've been in Florida and I have met many people and I'm having a great time.

My family is really great and I have wonderful new friends living across the street. Every day we do something different. We play tennis, go swimming, watch many movies or just hang around:) I love Florida so much! And it is a big advantage that the people can drive the car when they are 16 years old! But it is so crazy when I come back from school and everybody tries to be the first out of school on the road. There is so much traffic at this time! So I come to my next point, my new school.

My school is very good, too! The people are so open and friendly and I made a lot of friends! And I really like all the different activities that you can do after school, I am going now to the surf club! I have been to my first two football games of my school since I've been here and I have lots of fun (many cute boys, the boys are so much more athletic than in Germany:))!!!!!!!!!!

This week you could buy a school ring if you are a junior and of course I bought one with the school mascot, because I think it is a great memory of my wonderful time here and we don't have this in Germany!

I have also seen different animals like alligators, annoying bugs, and weird dogs:) Last weekend I went to my first homecoming from a High School and it was really great! We danced the whole evening and I met a lot new people and a whole class who speak fluent German, because they are here in Florida for the school, 3 weeks! It is really upsetting we don't have this in Germany!

Another exciting activity I did here was at the Ichetucknee. You swim on the river with tubes, see different animals, and we got to jump off trees (15 feet). It was so much fun!!

Everything is so exciting and new here, I see every weekend something new, I love it here so much!

At last I want to say "hey" to all the other exchange students who are here. Our orientation was so much fun, I like you all very much and I am looking forward to October when we will see you again! I am sure we will again have a great and funny time!

That's it from my first journal! I hope you like it! Now guys I am going to enjoy my new, exciting and wonderful American life!

Liebe Gruesse,

Victoria

December 9 Journal

Hey guys, I have to tell you something about my last month here. It is still great and I love it here so much! We just came from Orlando, where we visited Mickey Mouse and co. It was awesome. It was our district, the exchange students from south Florida, Pennsylvania and some from New York! We had such a great time and I loved it to meet all of you guys again and to make some new friends.

Also our last get-together in Daytona was fun, especially because of the bike week:) I cannot wait for New Year's and for the Keys to see you guys again, I am sure we will have so much fun again! Thank you Rotary, for this wonderful weekend - I cannot really say how much I liked it!

What else did I do so far? Oh yeah, first Halloween in the United States! I went to Orlando to Halloween Horror nights and it was so scary. Furthermore I went to trick and treat, of course. It is really sad, that we don't have Halloween that much back in my country, cause I liked it a lot!

Right know it is interesting to see how the Floridians prepare for Christmas. Since 1 week ago, the houses in my neighborhood are all shining because of bright lights and decorations outside.

I also saw the new James Bond movie 2 weeks ago and it was amazing. But I think the highlight was Thanksgiving. I ate definitely tooo much but the turkey was soo good! and Friday was my favorite day, the black Friday, the biggest shopping day ever!!! I made the best deals in my whole life, I think you can never go shopping better than in America:) So thanks. I hope to seeing some of you guys Sunday, Jaguars rulez and I hope we will see as when Srushti is cooking!@!jamma!!!!

Liebe Gruesse,

Victoria