Destan Karagöz

2007-08 Inbound from Turkey

Hometown: Istanbul, Turkey

Sponsor: Tarabya Rotary Club, District 2420, Turkey

Host: Mandarin Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Mandarin High School

Destan's Bio

Hi!!! My name is Destan and I'm 16 years old. I come from Turkey which is the only country that connects two continentals, Europe and Asia. And I live in Istanbul. It's one of the biggest cities of Turkey. I have an older brother who lives with us.

Now I'm in Florida with my wonderful host family. They are the best host family ever. I have two siblings and they are younger than me. Abraham is 9 and Sara is 7 years old. I love them a lot. Sometimes we play Uno, Monopoly, also we watch movies which I love since they are really nice kids.

I like the school a lot. I met a lot of people but I don't remember their names. They say hi to me whenever they see me but they cannot pronounce my name so they just call me "Turkey". It is so funny. I like my school a lot.

i wanted to be here since I thought that this is the best opportunity that a teenager can have. I think it's such a wonderful thing to have friends from all around the world. I have to add that Major Harding and Al Kalter are the best people I have ever met here. Although I know Al is very angry with me since I'm too late to send my Bio, I love him a lot. sorry Al=) (Webmaster's note: You're forgiven. J)

November 10 Journal

It's been 3 months. I feel totally different now. Those feelings are just like our famous phrase. "Not bad, not good, but different."

I'm having such a good time though. I traveled a lot. I have been in NY and it was amazing. I loved that city. It was totally different from Florida, Jacksonville. It was crowded just like my city, Istanbul. You can go anywhere you want by yourself which is perfect since we don't have that opportunity here. There were subways. We used them all the time. Also you can shop a lot there. There were lots of stores and they were really good. I felt like I was in Istanbul there.

Me and Kevin, we also went to Universal Studios in Orlando. We loved it. Actually it was kind of scary since there were those Halloween horror nights. I screamed a lot which hurt my throat a lot but I enjoyed it anyways - it was amazing.