Patrick Berger

2009-10 Inbound from Switzerland

Hometown: Kilchberg, Switzerland

Sponsor: Zurich-Sihltal Rotary Club, District 2000, Switzerland

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

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

Bio

Patrick's Bio

Hello everyone!! My name is Patrick Berger and I’m 17 years old! I live right next to Zurich, which is the biggest city in Switzerland. It has about 360,000 inhabitants. I live together with my mother and my twin sister, but I’m three minutes older than she is.  We also have a dog, it’s a small white one and I just love him, he’s great!! I still go to high school and I just finished 10th grade.

In my spare time I like to play with my dog, play golf, soccer, spend time with my friends and listen to music. Furthermore I LOVE to snowboard, in winter I go up to the mountains every weekend, it’s just my passion. I really like everything that is on a board haha! Like skateboard or wakeboard! I hope I learn how to surf here in Florida, which would be AWESOME!!!

Now we get to the point! FLORIDA! I’m living in St. Augustine and I just love it! It’s so beautiful with all the Spanish Moss, interesting history and great beaches!! And it’s so hot outside, even the rain is warm! 

I wanted to become an exchange student because when I was ten years old, we hosted a girl from Australia for three months. My father is a Rotarian and that’s how I discovered this program. I also know a few people who were on exchange and they said it’s the best thing I could do and that it is just a wonderful experience! It was always my dream, going to the US for one year... and now, Florida, St. Augustine: I really think I won the jackpot and I am very grateful for this!! My family, the Camerons, are great, they do so much for me and are soo nice!! I want to say thank you to them! It’s been great this two weeks I’m here now!

At last I want to say thank you to everyone else who made this year possible for me. I’m enjoying every minute! Thank you! 

September 27 Journal

Hi again, from St. Augustine Florida! I’m sorry it took so long, but I just didn’t find the time to write my journal, I’ve been so busy. Now I’ve been here since over six weeks and I just can’t believe it!! Time is just flying by and I kind of don't like that, haha. I like it a lot here, the weather is just great, the beach that close, that's just soo cool!

Let's begin with my arrival! I had a long flight from Zurich, Switzerland to Atlanta. It was like ten and a half hours long. In Atlanta I had to rush because I didn’t have much time until my connecting flight to Jacksonville left and we all know that Atlanta is one of the biggest airports in the world. So first off I was really glad that I made the flight. I didn’t sleep the whole trip, I was just so excited and when the plane finally landed in Jacksonville after a fifty minutes flight I couldn’t wait to get out of this plane and start my adventure. Then when I came out of the gates there where so many people greeting me and that was just so cool, I was so happy and ready to start my new life in the States! After I arrived at my new home I had a very nice dinner and finally went to bed after this long journey.

I arrived there about ten days before school started. That was good, because l had time to get to know the area where my new home was and could get used to the weather.  In these days before school started I sometimes helped my host parents with some stuff and I earn 5 dollars in one hour. Then I went to Sawgrass, the world famous golf course. It is sooo nice and impressive. I also went surfing and it’s pretty hard, haha. It is so difficult to know when to paddle, when to stand up, the position on the board. All these things you have to think about! But I really want to learn how to surf, because I already went three times by now and each time I can’t wait for the next time haha! Farther I went to the two big shopping malls in St. Augustine and also in Jacksonville. That was pretty impressive because everything is so inexpensive and BIG! But when I first entered Wal-Mart all I thought was: that’s crazy!!!! Then we had orientation weekend at Lake Yale which was quite cool, to meet all the people from all around the world.

After this weekend school started. School is just soo different here and I really had to get used to it. Changing classes all the time, always in a rush. It is really easy, except for the classes where English is still a barrier. I have A LOT of homework and I don't like this that much. The people in school are not really interested in talking to me and the first weeks weren’t that fun. But it’s getting better, I’m at the golf team and I know some guys from there. I also help out at the golf course, I work there at Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm. I have to sweep, wash golf clubs, wash golf carts and stuff like that and instead of earning money I earn golf time on the course and I can hit balls on the range for free. That's pretty cool. What I really like about school here is that all the sports are connected to it, and the big school spirit. That’s just amazing. The football games on Friday night are such a big deal with all the cheerleaders and the school band. I’ve been to one game of my school and I really enjoyed it.

I’m also having a really good time with my youth exchange friends from the area here, Lilia Montella form Italy and Adam Landström from Sweden. We had a sleep over together and went to the beach and TRIED to surf haha! I enjoyed it a lot because I haven’t made many friends at school yet so I’m always glad when I can spend time with them.

The last weekend was sooo exciting!! My host sister Christina and her boyfriend took me to a GATORS game vs. Tennessee and it was just crazy! 91 thousand people in the swamp and it was soo loud. The game started at 3:30 pm but we were already there at 9 am and tailgated all day long. We even had a flat screen TV with satellite in the back of the car, it’s crazy, I can’t say it enough! It was also the hottest day in my entire life. We spent three quarters of the game in the sun and it was over 90 degrees and it was horrible ! We had to find a spot in the shade during halftime break and sit down. The Gators finally won the game but they didn’t play that well. It was just a mind-blowing experience and I want to say thank you to them for taking me there.

If I had to describe the US just in a couple of words it would be: BIG, INEXPENSIVE and CRAZY, hahaha!  Americans are all much more open than in Europe - for example, on the street when you see them they are really friendly. But in school when they are all in groups they are really different and in everything that goes beyond saying "hi", they are really closed and it’s really difficult to make really good friends... these are my first impressions of the people here in the US. I hope that will change soon.

I think that it for now, I’m really enjoying the time here in Florida! Thanks for reading! 

January 11 Journal

In a few days five months are over!! OMG, this is crazy. I mean I’m really looking forward to see my family and friends again, but on the other hand I don’t want the time to go by sooo fast. It seems like I just got here. A lot of things happened since I wrote my last journal. Here we go:

In Fall we had the St. Augustine Fall Weekend with all the exchange students from our District 6970. It was so much fun, we had a bus tour through Downtown St. Augustine, we visited the Alligator farm, where we saw big fat lazy gators.  We certainly went to the “Fountain of Youth”, were we tried this reeeaallly nice tasting water ( for those who haven’t been there, it tastes disgusting ) that is actually supposed to keep you young, hahaha.

Then we had an afternoon at the beach, which was awesome. We played, or tried to play football in the water, it was so much fun. We also ate a lot of food and it was so good. We did another bunch of stuff and we just had a great time.

An outstanding event in my High School time here was Homecoming week and the Homecoming Dance itself. Throughout the week there were certain topics every day. For example there is a superhero day, school spirit day, twin day, hip hop day etc. And then Thursday, the day before the big homecoming football game, is pep rally. The whole school goes to the gym and gets all fired up und pumped for the game. That was just amazing, it’s something we don’t have in Switzerland, this school spirit. The cheerleaders were doing their cheers, the dance team their dances, and a lot more was happening.

Next day we won our football game, which was good, I mean who wants to lose their homecoming game haha.

The Dance was Saturday night. I went with Lilia from Italy and Arm from Thailand. Woow, how the girls dance here..!! It was definitely an experience! :D hahaha

Halloween here in the US was quite an experience too. Even though I didn’t go “trick-or-treatin’”. I was at the Halloween Party of Alvin from Denmark and it was great. We had a great time in the pool, the hot tub and around the bonfire. The next day- I was sooo tired- I went with Vinny from Brasil to the Florida- Georgia Game in Jacksonville. It was an exciting game, because we beat these “dawgs”! 

In the meanwhile I have also changed my host family for the first time. I had a wonderful time with the Camerons and I loved them. They helped me a lot in these first four months and they were the perfect first host family. Thank you for everything you did! Now I’m living with the Carters and I’m having a great time. There is always something going on in the house and it’s rarely gets boring. My new host dad teaches me a lot of funny English sayings. I have one host sister and two host brothers. I really like them and I want to thank them all for having me!

A week after I moved in with my new host family we had our Disney trip December 10th- 13th: we had a blast, omg, it was so amazing. There were all the exchange students from whole Florida plus some from Tennessee and South Carolina. It is just a weekend I will never ever forget, being together and make friends with people from all around the world… I really don’t know how to put it in words. It was a wonderful weekend. First day we went to Hollywood Studios, second day to Magic Kingdom, third day to Epcot, where we saw the amazing firework over the lake - was epic – and the fourth day we went to Animal Kingdom.

After that Christmas was already around the corner and I realized how fast time goes by. I remember when we were at the airport and my sister told me that she wishes it was already Christmas, because then it wouldn’t be long anymore until she can see me again. And now I feel like this was a few weeks ago.. crazy!

Anyways, it was the first Christmas I was away from my family. Actually I thought it was going to be harder but it was quite tough. Probably it was because I feel very comfortable with my family and I was to excited to experience the American Christmas with Santa and the stockings and everything. 

December 27th I went to Busch Gardens in Tampa with Adam from Sweden, Lilia from Italy and Adam's host mom Carla Isicoff, her son and a friend of his. We went there for four days and it was so cool. We stayed in a hotel pretty close to the park and it was perfect. I LOVE roller coasters, the “sheikra” and “mantu” are the best ones I’ve ever been on. It was fantastic! After two days we’ve seen it though and we went to Downtown Tampa, shopping! It was really cool to see another part of Florida. We also went to the Florida Aquarium down there, that was really nice. I’m so grateful that Mrs. Isicoff took me with them, thank you so much!

The 31st of December we went to that Center that provides food and a home for homeless people. We cooked for them and served them food. It was a good experience, under the Rotary motto: “Service Above Self”.

After that we went to Leandro’s host family’s house, which was so nice and big. It is right next to the St. Johns River with view on the skyline of Jacksonville. That’s where we celebrated New Years Eve watching the Fireworks over Jacksonville. It was amazing, almost all the kids of D 6970 were there. It was an unforgettable New Years Party and probably one of the best I’ve ever had. A big thank you to Leandro's host family!

How you can see I had an amazing break and it felt really good. When I was at home during the break we played a lot of games. My favorite: FARKLE!! It’s a dice game that is so much fun. I had a great time with my host family and did some fun stuff with my host brother Chance! From time to time I wrestle with him haha, something I could never do with my sister and I’m really enjoying having a brother my age. Now school is up again. School still didn’t change that much. But whatever… Golf season is over and now I play soccer in school. I really like my team and playing soccer.

Next week we have final exams for this semester and I’m not that excited for them hahaha!

A big upcoming event in the end of the month is Sea Camp down in the Keys. I can’t wait to see everybody again. It’s going to be awesome. Actually kind of sad too… Some people we’ll never see again after that. 

In a couple days five months are over…crazy! I can’t wait to experience the last few months of my exchange and enjoy every moment possible. It’s going to be over before we’re even able to think about it.

I can’t really say if this year already changed me, and if, in what ways. But I’m sure it will, this is exchange has an immense value, and it will change my life in certain ways, good ways.

Thank you so much to everybody who is involved with this program and/or is making an effort to make this year special and unforgettable to everyone of us exchangers!