Laura van den Herrewegen

2008-09 Inbound from Belgium

Hometown: Liege, Belgium

Sponsor: Liege Rotary Club, District 1630, Belgium

Host: Coastal St. Johns Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida

School: Pedro Menendez High School, St. Augustine, FL

Bio

Laura's Bio

Hi! I'm Laura van den Herrewegen. I'm 18 years old. And I'm from BELGIUM!

Belgium is a little country in Europe. In Belgium we speak 3 languages (French, Dutch and German) but me, I speak French. My city is Liege. And in Belgium you can find the better chocolate and the better (French) Belgian Fries. My city is at 2 hours to the beach. I have 2 brothers and one sister.

Here I am in St. Augustine! And I live near the beach (5 minutes). I like St. Augustine very much! And I'll have a very beautiful year there! I like sailing, read, listen music, and hang out with my friends. Here I want to play soccer because I have never tried. I want also to learn surfing!

I decided to make a year of exchange because I think it's a wonderful experience! You have only one time in your life to do this experience! You cam discover another culture, discover many amazing people, discover another country, and learn English.

At school I am in Pedro Menendez High School! It's a very big school (2600 students). It's a very nice school!

I want to say thank you to my sponsor club, my host club, my parents and to my host families for this year which will be amazing!

November 15 Journal

Hello! I’m already here for three months now and it seems like only one month! The time is so fast. I have a really good time here!

I went to Sea World with some exchange students. It was amazing! We saw the shows with the dolphins, the whales, we saw all the marine animals. It was really beautiful! And I really enjoy it!

We also had the weekend with the exchange student in St. Augustine! It was an amazing weekend! The exchange students came to my city on Friday night. Saturday we went to the Fountain of Youth (we tasted the water…haha) and after we went to downtown on a little train. It was really fun to see all the exchange students in my city! After we went to the beach and we had dinner there.

On Sunday we went to Alligator Farm and we sailed on a boat! And after that the weekend was finished...But we will see each other during the Disney weekend! It’ll be so cool that I cannot wait for this weekend!

In my school, I was in a play! And we did really well :) Maji, Raffaela, Sara , Ezgi came to see me and I was really glad they came!:)

Now I play soccer in my school!! It’s really hard and different because I never played before and we practice every day! But I like it a lot! We already had 2 games and we won!

School is much better now because at the beginning it was really hard to understand the teacher but now I can understand in class so it’s so much better! And Sara (from Spain) and I are in the same school and I'm really happy that we are in the same city because now she is my best friend here and I pass a really great time with her!

I went with my host mother, my host sister and Sara to the Halloween Horror night… It was really scary but so fun! It was like in the movie, all the people had a scary costume and they make you afraid. I really enjoyed that we went there!

We also had homecoming. It was really different than the dance in my school in Belgium! But I liked the homecoming too! We had Halloween too. It was so funny! We went trick or treating in my neighborhood. And we were disguised ahahhaah.

Yesterday I went to Marineland to see the launch of the space shuttle..! It was so incredible!!! I want to say thank you to the Rotary, to my host family, to my parents because I have a wonderful experience here!! Thank you!