Lilla Hollós

2009-10 Inbound from Hungary

Hometown: Budapest, Hungary

Sponsor: Budapest-Sasad Rotary Club, District 1911, Hungary

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

School: Lake Mary High School, Lake Mary, Florida

Bio

Lilla's Bio

My name is Lilla Hollós. I`m 16 years old. I’m from Hungary, I live in Budapest and I was born there too. The capital of Hungary is Budapest. Hungary is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe.

My mother graduated the Music Academy - she’s an opera singer. My father works as a journalist. He has written the Rotary Hungary magazine for five months because he’s member of Rotary. My sister is a student and she is a tennis player. She lives in Italy and she goes the Tennis Academy. I go to secondary school. It calls Xántus János Bilingual and Tourist Secondary School.

I like listening to music. I prefer pop to something. I love reading. I love sports, for example swimming, tennis, skiing and ice skating whit my friends. I not only like playing sports, I love cheering for a team with my best friends and we love to go to the cinema together. My favorite hobby is dancing. I have been dancing since I was 6.

I love it here in Florida, and I haven`t got homesick. I’m living in Lake Mary this year. I love the ocean, sometimes my host sister and I go to Daytona Beach. I`m going to Lake Mary High School and I`m a junior. I love this school. I have got a wonderful host family.

I think this year will be fun for me. I came here 1 month ago and I love life here.

September 13 Journal

Hey everybody! I have been here for only 1 month, but I have done so many fun things.

First of all, I talk about my trip. The flight from Budapest to London only 2 hours, but I was already bored in this trip, than I waited in the London airport 1 and half hour that I change my plane. The most boring part in my whole life the trip over the Ocean, because it was 16 hours. When I arrived to Florida I was so excited. When I met my new family I was so happy.

They wanted to take me someplace special, so we went to Tu Tu Tango where I ate alligator and banana pizza, and that was so awesome. I enjoyed the dinner but I was so tired, I started to forget my words. After the dinner we went home and finally I slept.

The first week, my host sister Stephanie and I did a lot of things, but the most important thing in this week when we went to the beach. It was my first time on the beach so I was so excited. At the beach we did lots of things: we ate, listened to music and we went to swimming, the waves were so big. Our car got stuck in the sand and we had to push it out. The sun was so strong and I got sunburned.

In the first weekend we moved my oldest host sister, Danielle, to the University of Florida for her first year at college. We set up her dorm.

The second weekend we went to the Sugar Ray concert in downtown Orlando with two other inbound exchange students, Kristian from Denmark and Maciej from Poland. We got caught in the rain, but we still had fun. I got to meet most of the other the exchange students in my area when we all went to Wet 'n Wild water park. We rode all of the rides. This day was so fun.

My first day at school I was so nervous that I had butterflies in my stomach, but I already met Stephanie's friends and I felt welcome. I'm taking some good classes - TV production, multicultural literature, algebra, Spanish, physics. The first 3 days at the school was little bit hard.

My third weekend was so busy, because Stephanie was a dancer in a Michael Jackson tribute and we had a pool party with all of the exchange students and the families from 6980 district. The Michael Jackson tribute was a dance performance by the high school students and Stephanie's dance studio in memory of Michael Jackson. I liked the dancing and some people sang. The pool party was so fun, we went boating and swimming.

This weekend was my best weekend in my whole life because I went to my first football pep rally and football game. We won the game and I got to see the cheerleaders in person. I was very excited because my favorite movie is Bring It On.

Yesterday my host mother, Stephanie, and I went to the Universal Studios Orlando. We rode all of the best roller coasters, so it was fun and amazing.		Welcome to Florida	My host family
First dinner	Pool party	Beach	Jurassic Park
Lake Mary Rams	Cheerleader	Roller coaster	Wet 'n Wild

February 3 Journal

I don’t know where I should start this journal, but that was a long time ago when I wrote my last one. Lot of things happened, I changed family, two amazing weekend with all of the exchange students, Christmas and other funny things.

I think I start before I changed family, the Thanksgiving week because that week was one of my best and unforgettable weeks ever in my life. I went with some of the exchange students in my district to Disney, we had too much fun, we tried most of the things in MGM and the Magic Kingdom, but it’s impossible to try everything one day, but the best things the roller coasters we didn’t miss.

The same week I went to the SeaWorld with Clara the exchange student from Brazil and with my host sister Stephanie. I have to tell who loves the animals specially the ocean animals they have to go the SeaWorld the best place ever and the roller coaster's cool too. The shows are also funny and incredible.

So I spent two days in theme parks and I was really tired after these, but the next day I went to the Orlando Magic basketball game, where we lost, but I enjoyed the game with Clara. The last quarter everybody was standing and cheering for the players it was so much fun.

Thanksgiving was really nice because I never had before something new again what I could try. I think it’s a really nice family celebration where you can get a chance to be with your whole family, and just say thanks for everything. After Thanksgiving I changed family, what was really hard for me because I loved my first family, and I was really nervous about the next because two boys, and they are younger than me and no girls, but I think everything worked out pretty cool, I like to live with them and what is really important, they from India, so this is an other totally different culture than mine. The food is awesome, I hated the spicy food before, but now I’m eating everything what my host mom making, and usually we are eating Indian food what is really spicy.

December 10th we went to Disney with all of the exchange students that were a great time. We went every park and we tried everything in the parks except in Animal Kingdom because after the other 3 days everybody was really tired, we enjoyed it so much and I think that weekend was the most excited.

For Christmas I went Miami with my new host family, to celebrate Christmas with their family. There were a lot of Indian people so I felt myself a little weird, but I liked it. I had a great time with them, but I also missed my family, I thought about my mom and our family Christmas and I felt a little sad, but that feeling was gone after one day. Before New Years I and some of the exchange students went to the Busch Gardens, it was a bad time when we went because, there were too much people, but we enjoyed it and we tried most of the big roller coasters what was awesome.

Between Key West and New Years a lot of thing happened but not that important, than our last weekend together with all of the exchange students in Key West, Florida. I loved that weekend - I loved the place, when you looked around everywhere was ocean and I loved snorkeling but the best thing I met with my exchange student friends and we met other students from US and we made really good friendships. I was so sad to leave them. Everybody said you will meet them again, and they are right, I will, but one thing never be the same, we never be all of us together again, and it makes difference. The Key West weekend was the greatest and unforgettable weekend in my life. I met new people Alexis, Natalie, Alex, Effie and I’ll never forget them.

I think the best choice what I ever made in my life to be an exchange student, maybe never ever I’ll experience these things if I’m not an exchange student.

Thank you so much for everybody. I’ll miss all of you.

May 26 Journal

I wrote my last journal after the Key West trip, and that was a long time ago, I can’t even tell how many things happened afterwards.

At the end of February we attended RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) with the 10 other exchange student from my district 6980, that weekend was really enjoyable, lot of fun and laughing, the best part we met ninety other high school students from every public school in our district. The RYLA weekend was also sad because in such a short time we made the best friendships and it only took four days, and this four days one of the memories what we never going to forget.

During spring break I changed my family again - this is my third family. I moved to the most amazing host family that I ever met, I loved my other two families too but this family is just different. They gave me a lot; I feel they are my second family of course after my real family. One of the first days what we spent together we went to the dog beach with Mitsy our puppy, she is the best dog, she enjoyed the beach so much.

With my new family I got the chance to learn to fly because my host dad Steve has a 4 seat airplane. The most memorable thing was when we went up with the airplane and watched the space shuttle launch from the air. The story started when my host dad decided we are going to watch the shuttle launch but he asked me: do you want to watch from the air or just from the ground? Sure my answer was let’s watch from the air, it’s not even a question, but probably if we watching it from the ground we get a better view but, that’s not that exciting and unforgettable than going up and being on the same place with the shuttle also that’s a different experience. We stayed up whole night with my host mom Letitia, because we had to check the weather and I have to tell I couldn’t really sleep. That day was so foggy, so I was afraid we won’t be able to go up, but we made it.

Probably a month later I got the opportunity from my host family to go to the Kennedy Space Center and learn everything about the shuttle launch, the rockets and everything that the space center working on.

One weekend in April we went to Sun’n’Fun with my host dad and we flew there what was a totally different than just driving there and watch the airplane show, I think I can say we were part of the show .

My host mom Letitia takes me to school every day, so I was able to talk with her a lot, we became best friends, we going shopping a lot together, and when my friends coming to sleep over, we stay up whole night to watch movies and laugh.

At the end of April we had a district conference what we spent in a cruise ship, we headed to Bahamas. That trip was just unbelievable! I never seen in my life that blue ocean what I saw in Bahamas, and the cruise ship… no way, I ever seen this huge ship in my life. We had so much fun with my exchange student friends, and we going to remember it forever not just because we went to the Bahamas and very few people get a chance to go there, but also that trip was our last trip together.

Also I wanted to write about something. Steve and Letitia volunteering for angel flight what mean angel flight volunteers are helping take sick people to different places, and hospitals and I’m really proud I was part of this mission. Part of helping somebody, who needs our help. Me and my host dad together took a man to a hospital for rehabilitation, because the doctors told him he going to be blind within six month we helped him and that made me feel good.

I had a really busy weekend last week. I learnt surfing what I never believed I’m going to do one time, and actually I have to tell I wasn’t that bad, however the first time we were talking with my host mom Letitia, we going to get hurt really bad, so let’s send Steve and Pamela my friend first, but nothing bad happened and we enjoyed it. 

In this year I did things what I never did before and maybe if I’m not coming to the exchange year I don’t even get the chance to do it, and my exchange year didn’t end yet, so I’m trying to work on new things and enjoy them.