Daniela (Dani) Santamaria Serrano

2009-10 Inbound from Ecuador

Hometown: Ibarra, Ecuador

Sponsor: Ibarra Rotary Club, District 4400, Ecuador

Host: Fort Myers Sunrise Rotary Club, District 6960, Florida, USA

School: Riverdale High School, Fort Myers, Florida

Bio

Dani's Bio

I'm Daniela Santamaria the girl from Ecuador! And I'm kind of hyper. I'm 16 years, I'll be 17 in January. I love the idea of being here in Florida.

In my country I lived with my parents in a city called Ibarra, It is not that big, but not that small. They are doctors. I have one brother and one sister, both of them have been exchange students from Rotary; my brother went to Germany, and my sister went to Belgium, they said that that was they best experience so I thought it was my time to do it. My high school was called Pensionado Atahualpa and it has like 250 or 300 students. It was a privete high school.

I like dancing but my real passion is acting and I just realized that one year ago. I also love to talk with my friends and hang out with them.

I have a niece, she is 3 years old and she is crazy she sings and she is really hyper like me, but when she gets angry she is really mean, but I love her...

Well I think that's all. Thanks to Rotary for giving me this experience that I will never forget and for letting me know another culture and meet people from different places of the world.

October 6 Journal

Hey everyone,

Well let me tell you some of the things I have being doing in this time.

I had like 2 horse shows and I won some ribbons and I like presenting my horse, but is way too hot outside, but different and interesting.

I had been helping the Rotary club with different stuff like picking up trash from streets and labeling dictionaries, and I like it cuz it is interesting and is something we don't do that often in my country.

The other day my host sister Jessica, her friend Samie and I were babysitting Kayle (my host niece) and she was so full and tired and she started puking all over them and I was crying cuz it was hilarious, and my host sis took a shower and when she came out she took Kayle from me and she puked again all over my host sis! Samie and me were lol so hard, it was funny.

School is fun … sometimes me and my friends get so hyper that people stare at us like what is wrong with you, but it is funny. The last pep rally that we had, some of the teachers dressed up like girls and pretend to be the cheerleaders from the other school … it was really funny and I think there is a video on YouTube. Homecoming is going to be soon and I'm going with some of my friends. It is going to be fun! I can't wait.

I had seen Anni, Gui, Rea, and Camille since the inbound orientation, lol. This weekend I’m going to see some of them too and we are going to an amusement park cuz there is something about Halloween and we can't live without seeing each other in a long time. We have got really close so we feel like brothers and sisters.

I can't wait to see all of you on Disney World trip! Miss you all!

Dani

November 16 Journal

Well is being pretty a long time since I wrote my last journal and I hope I put a lot of the things I have being doing all these time.

So before Halloween Anni (Finland), Gui (Brasil) and me went to Busch Gardens to Halloscream and it was pretty funny, but I was screaming like a little kid, but everything is a new experience.

I have been in more horse shows, winning some ribbons, yay! My host mom says I'm getting better, and I also ride my horse a few times in the week. School is fine, keep meeting new people and learning, so when I got my first quarter report card I thought it was bad but I did way better than what I thought - just one bad grade but I'm working on it :)

I have being shopping with my host sister and it has been fun, but we always spend all our money lol. I just started my lacrosse practices and is being kind of difficult and tiring but everyone is really nice and they are helping me to get better.

So Anni from Finland came this weekend to my house and we did a lot of stuff, watching movies, shopping, and a lot more :) But we also had my host niece, she is about 4 months old, and she was crying so bad and screaming, she was driving us crazy. But when she was fine she was pretty cute … me and Anni had to watch her for a few hours because my host parents had to go and get some cows to another field, and she was really tired, so I finally made her sleep and we ate breakfast and did some other fun things. Until she woke up and she was fine for like 30 minutes, then she was hungry and we made her a bottle, and when she finished eating, she kept crying so we gave her more food. That was a pretty bad idea, because after that she was puking all over us. It was gross but funny, when Anni was holding her, she puked, and I was laughing and said now you are part of this family! We called her the puking machine, it was fun :)

Oh in homecoming week everything was crazy, different costumes for every day - it was funny. They also had a powderpuff game where the girls play football and the guys are cheerleaders, it was so freaking funny, and the womanless beauty pageant … At the homecoming dance I was with my host sister and some friends and we went to eat at Olive Garden before the dance, then we went to the dance in a limo :) When we got there, I was with my other friends dancing all night. It was pretty fun, there was a lot of people, but I kind of found out that more than 90% of the drama is in the dance floor! I couldn’t believe how a lot of people really were. My sister was like, I really can't believe how people that you call friends do stuff that hurt you, and one of her friends was crying for one of her "friends" fault. But besides that everything was good …

For Thanksgiving we are going to Pennsylvania (yay!) but is going to be kind of cold … and then we have Disney World trip! Yeah I can't wait to see all of the exchange students again <3

January 11 Journal

Well we went to Disney trip...and it was so cool! and I love it cuz I was getting closer with the exchange students....we had great experiences...but it was really tired. Zeeshan and me were hyper together and we were singing Party on the USA all the time...

Well back at home the weather keep getting colder and colder.....Christmas was really cool, the night before we had a dinner and watched a movie with all my family :).....and we got a lot of presents! I loved it....it kept getting colder....for new years we didn't do anything big, just stayed at home have special dinner and played some games...and January first was my B-day and we were going to have a dinner but my host dad broke his heel so we took him to the hospital...but it was funny cuz he knew he broke it for something really dumb....and everyone was telling him have a great new year and we all were laughing about it.....so we did the dinner the second and opened my presents and it was so funny....

January 2 I also had another horse show...and I won a lot of ribbons but it was so cold and my horse was being mean cuz he was cold so it was time to leave.... school has been fun but we're almost in the first semester quiz week and that's not cool, is going to be a lil hard but fine....