Anna Pregartner

2008-09 Inbound from Austria

Hometown: Weiner Neudorf, Austria

Sponsor: Moedling Rotary Club, District 1910, Austria

Host: Treasure Coast Rotary Club, District 6930, Florida, USA

School: St. Edwards School, Vero Beach, FL

Bio

Anna's Bio

Hey, my name is Anna Pregartner, I am 15 years old, and so I’m a sophomore this year. My home country is Austria, where I live on the East side, near Vienna. I have two little sisters (13, 4) there and I live with them and my mother in a wonderful house in a small village. Here I’m living in Vero Beach, FL near the beach. Actually, I have four families through the whole year, but obviously I don’t have to change school. I’m going to a private school, called Saint Edwards, and there are about 75 pupils in my grade. The school system is very different than in Austria, because there you can’t choose your classes, you will get a schedule! But I’m getting on with this, because the people are all very nice and helpful. I really love Florida, it’s a great place with an amazing beach and I do like the weather, the sea and the palm trees, though it might be very hot.

In Austria, one of my biggest hobbies was snowboarding in the winter and I think I’m going to miss the snow a bit, like White Christmas and so on. I used to play the piano for 4 years, I played chess and I rode a horse also for almost couple of years. A special interest of mine is learning new languages; at the moment I speak German, English, French, a little bit of Hungarian and I’m starting Spanish this year. I also had one year of Latin, so I understand quiet much of Romanic languages. This year is the great opportunity to make my English fluent and I really appreciate that! Three of my friends from Austria are also doing an exchange, two of them to the States and one to Panama. So it’s very common to spend one year in a different country in the 10th grade.

In my free time, like in summer, I often meet friends, hang out at each other’s house, go to the mall, in the cinema, or just to a little lake in the neighborhood. I enjoy lying in the sun, listening to music, and reading fantasy stories.

I’m so looking forward to having a great year in Florida and to meet the other RYE students again.

October 5 Journal

After being in Vero Beach, FL for about two months, I can only say that I absolutely love it and that I can’t imagine being in Austria at the moment. It’s completely different here, not a bit – completely. You have to become familiar with a lot of new rules that you’ve never heard before, but which are very important here. If I would have a chance, I wish I would be able to just take my family and friends from Austria to Florida and spend the rest of my life here. This country is amazing!!

My school started at the end of August, but before there was a big birthday party of a friend where I got to know most of the kids in my grade. That fact really helped me at my first day of school, because I didn’t feel lost and I had someone to talk to. I realized that the school system is exactly the opposite of the system in my country. Here I have 6 classes (French, Spanish, Geometry, Chemistry, English, World History) and one extra class, called English Enrichment, for people who can’t speak English haha. I actually don’t need this class, but there are about 6 students in it and they are all so nice that I’m really enjoying it. The school starts at 8 and ends only at 3:36, so, actually, from Monday to Friday everything is school, studying and doing homework. As I mentioned in my Bio, my school is a private school and I’m SO glad to be there. There are only 300 kids in the high school and in the meanwhile I know most of them (not by name though). Here, it doesn’t really matter, if you are a sophomore and you have friends who are seniors or freshman – you can just hang out with everyone. ( : In the second semester we will have a family from Austria in my school, who I have met yet and I’m so looking forward to it, because they are really nice. My grades at SES (abbr. for my school) are so much better than they were in Austria- it’s very easy for me here (e.g. I was one of the worst students in math and now I’m THE best haha).

I really got to understand that you don’t have so much freedom here and that most of the Americans are very protective and you have to become accustomed with that, but now – after some experiences- I think it’s getting easier for me to fit in this country.

Apart from meeting all the other exchange students and went with some of them to the Kennedy Space Center, I went to SeaWorld and to Fort Lauderdale with my host family and I’ll be going to Miami next weekend. I made the experiences of tubing, surfing, weird TV shows, eating food that I’ve never imagined of, taking a school bus back and forth from school, seeing my first baseball and football game in my life (although my school has a very bad football team and I don’t get this sport after watching it 2 times ;D ), having my own bathroom!, of a hurricane and of hot weather all day long, having a lot of fun just in talking to your friends and have a sleepover. The funniest question, with whom I’m ever confronted, are something like: “So, how is it to have kangaroos in your backyard?” “Do you speak Austrian in Austria?” and I also heard “Do you live in the French or the German Part of Austria?” (which a guy from Denmark asked me!) or “Do you guys have pizza and Chinese food in Austria?” After time it got really funny to hear those questions.

I’ve met all of my 4 host families yet and they are fabulous. I think I’m really lucky with them (also with their HUGE houses haha), because they are all very nice and helpful. For me the time is passing by so fast, too fast. 2 months – it feels like 1 day. I do enjoy every moment and live it as good as possible. I’m also so happy at school, it probably sounds weird – but I could spend my weekends there, if I wouldn’t need sleep. Life was never as perfect as it is now!