Kristian Korsgaard

2009-10 Inbound from Denmark

Hometown: Strib, Denmark

Sponsor: Middelfart Rotary Club, District 1460, Denmark

Host: Winter Springs Rotary Club, District 6980, Florida, USA

School: Winter Park High School, Winter Park, Florida

Bio

Kristian's Bio

Hi!I am Kristian from Denmark. I have just graduated 10th grade in Danish middle school. I live in a small village called Strib with about 4500 inhabitants. Strib is placed west on the island called Fyn in the central part of Denmark. I live together with my parents, and my 2 younger brothers in a big house just next to the beach.

I wanted to be an Exchange student because I think it is the most exciting and learningful year you can get.

I love tennis, music, skiing, and surfing. So I am sure Rotary has make an good decision to send me to Florida – "The home of my hobbies" – (I know its difficult to do alpine skiing here in Florida, but at least I can water-ski in the lakes with the gators J ).

I am very lucky and glad to go to Florida, and I'm sure I will have an awesome time in the States.

November 3 Journal

I have been in sunny Florida 3 months now and I simply just love it! A new adventure is beginning every morning. The time is going so fast that a year spent here just may be too short! Exchange is like learning how to surf. First you have to do a lot of work to be ready to “catch the wave”. Once you are lying out in the water, you see the wave and you get more and more excited. Then you catch your wave and suddenly you are on an adventure – on your own. In the very beginning, it’s a little hard but after a little while you learn to understand the place you are and everything starts to be easier and more exciting. Now you are standing on your own legs, the freedom is yours, and it’s (mostly) up to you which direction you want to go. Your journey is going faster and faster. You try to enjoy the trip of your life but it’s hard ’cause it is going so fast. Suddenly the ride is over and you are home again.

Thank God I’m still standing on my wave! J

Here is a little recap of what I have been doing the last two months:

08/12/09- Arrival in Orlando, United States of America! – I lived the first few days together with my Chairman and his wife: John and Robin Siegel and the Polish exchange student, Maciej. We had some good days together and I gained 3 new good friends.

08/21/09 – Rotary Orientation Weekend After a little less than 3 weeks in Florida it was time for the Rotary weekend; time to meet all the guys who have made our trip possible, receive some valuable information, and meet all the other exchange students. The arrangement was held in Leesburg and it was very beautiful outside our camp. The mosquitoes was unfortunately hungry that weekend, but it helped there were so many nice people, and we received some good information too. After this weekend it seemed like my world got smaller ’cause I suddenly knew people from all over the planet.

08/24/09- My first day in school: First day at school, can be scary enough, but starting in an American High School where you have never seen one of the faces before and they are not even speaking your own native language seems really scary! Until you realize how nice, and open, the American people are - when you just open up your mouth and start speaking English with your Danish Viking accent they all wanna speak with you and hear what you have to say.

08/27/09- Maciej- Maciej has also started at my school (Winter Park High School). We even have 3 classes together. We spend a lot of time together on the weekends where we mostly play tennis, or go to the ocean.

08/28,29/09- New Smyrna Beach- Rocket Launch - Maciej’s host family was so nice to bring me to the beach where we stayed in one of their condos and surfed a lot in some of the biggest waves I ever have seen with my own eyes not just a good 15 megapixel camera recording on Hawaii. At sunset we saw the Rocket launch from Cape Canaveral NASA. It was AMAZING - the whole sky lit up!

Maciej n' I at Camp Yale

Surfing!!

Rocket Launching

Maciej, Emanuele, and I at Sea World

December 9 Journal

Life is freakin amazing

10/11-13/09 – Marco Island

This weekend was unbelievable. Me and my host family went to Marco Island. Marco Island is located near Naples on the South-West side of Florida. We were going down to visit some good friends – Wayne Henuset and his wife. Wayne is a famous business man in Canada because he sold his company for 6billion $ !! They normally live in Calgary – Canada but were on vacation in Florida for some weeks. They live in a very big house right on the water with boats and jetskis . We had some AWESOME days, we fished for sharks, waterskied around all the small palm islands, wrestled in the pool, ate some very good food, relaxed and enjoyed our time together. This weekend was probably the best in my US-life

10/16-18 - Boston

Another wicked (Boston slang for good) weekend, this time in Boston, Massachusetts. We arrived Friday where we saw a little bit of Boston – beautiful, but very cold compared to The Sunshine State. Saturday we went to some of my host family's good friends wedding. It was a fun day and I met a lot of their friends. Sunday I saw a little more of rainy Boston and met some more family. By the way, I saw my American History teacher in the airport in Boston.

10/25/09 - Homecoming dance

The homecoming dance was the first big school event of the year. I was very excited and didn't really know what to expect. The dance started at 8pm but earlier I met with a whole bunch of my friends and had dinner, hung out and then together went to the dance.

The dance was really cool, the whole school was dancing real close up and down, in and out. I danced so much that my back and legs were hurting on the way home.

10/31/09 - Halloween

Halloween was fun too. I was together with Maciej for the night – at the beginning we didn’t really want to try trick or treating cause we thought we were too old. However, we decided to dress up. I was a Pirate and Maciej was a vampire. We had a lot of fun out there and really experienced the spirit of Halloween.

Me on the tennis court	The house we stayed in at Marco	Waterskiing at Marco
Sunset at Marco	My host family and I at the wedding	My dates ;-)

May 15 Journal

Time is going by too fast and a lot of events have happened since I last wrote in December. I have now moved from my 1st family to my 3rd and final – and I’m still having the time of my life. I had a really, really good time with my first family – The Foyes - and Brandon my 1st host brother is going home with me for 1 week in Denmark and 1 week in the Czech Republic . My 2nd family - The Dwyers were nice as well.

Disney World

Whoa, the Rotary Disney trip was awesome! We had so much fun there and the four days passed way too fast. I especially enjoyed being at Epcot. That is the park with all the countries. Perfect for us exchange students. The evening laser and firework show was really beautiful. I have never seen so many fireworks at the same time (not even on TV!) and while the fireworks were in the background a big globe was passing over the lake with a light show. In the show they were playing, "Let there be peace on Earth." I felt that this was made for us since this is one of Rotary’s goal with Rotary Youth Exchange: to make people learn and understand about other people’s culture.

Christmas trip

For Christmas my family and I went on a "see-almost-the whole-east coast-on-a-week trip". Our first "big" stop was in Washington DC where we spent 3 days. We saw the Capitol Building, The National Archive Museum (where we had a private viewing of some very old and important archives and documents), the Pentagon, the Newseum, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Senate Chambers (where the senators were arguing their points for or against the new healthcare reform). We had some snowball fights, visited Mount Vernon(where George Washington lived) and then we had this amazing night. It started with dinner at The Capital Grille were I had the steak of my life,. After the delicious dinner, a limousine was waiting outside!! It drove us around to see all the famous places in the dark (The White House, The Lincoln Memorial, World War 1 Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, The Korean Veterans Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial). On Christmas Eve, we drove up to CT to visit with some of the Foye’s family. On the drive back to FL, we stopped in DE to visit more family. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

Seacamp

Seacamp was also a candidate to being one of the best weeks in my life! Almost all the RYE-Florida exchange students were there plus some of the local 2010-11 outbounds . The main time was spent in the amazing Seacamp located in Big Pine Key (Florida Keys). The camp was really fun and educational where we learned about the ocean. We even snorkeled on the coral reefs were I saw all sorts of beautiful fish, corals, etc. which I really enjoyed!! There was a really nice atmosphere and everybody was sad to leave. Thanks to the Seacamp and Rotary for making this amazing week possible.

Tennis season

The High school tennis season just ended and we had a blast of a season. During the spring break, I went to Miami with the team to play some better schools and to watch the ATP and WTA master tournament Sony Ericsson Open. Actually, this is where I met my 3rd family, The Clarks, a friend from the tennis team. I played Line 3 in singles and Line 2 in doubles. My team, Winter Park High School, and I ended up being 6th in the State and #1 in Central Florida. Personally, I was 9-1 in singles and 8-1 in doubles. The school sports programs work really well and that is something I wish we had in Denmark as well because it’s a great way to hang and make new friends… and meet new host families!

Bahamas

6980’s yearly conference - held on a boat sailing around in the Caribbean. Yaa.. it sound's pretty sweet! .... And yes, it was really sweet!! We started the cruise in Cape Canaveral where we boarded on Royal Caribbean. The ship was huuuge with several pools, a casino, fitness room, cinema, basketball courts and a soft ice cream machine! We stopped in Nassau and on a little beautiful privately- owned island - Coco Cay. Nassau was really beautiful and HOT, and in Coco Cay I went snorkeling where I saw tons of cool fish and beautiful corals. All-in-all an amazing trip!!! Besides, I probably put on 10 pounds.

The West Coast trip is coming up soon and I’m very excited! After the trip I am going to spend another 2 weeks with my host family in Lake Tahoe, California  

My time here is really getting close to an end, my host families, friends, and this amazing program has given me the time of my life! I will never, ever forget this year. A year here in this awesome part of Florida has taught me an unbelievable amount. It’s a more open- minded, more tolerant for other cultures, more mature Krissy who is returning to the home of bacon! 

Thanks to everyone who made, the best year of my life possible!

Sincerely

Kristian Korsgaard

Bahamas

Disney World

Washington DC

District champions